Ofc- 


U 


REESE    LIBRARY 

•  •)    i  it i: 

VERSITV  OF   CAL1FOR 


NIA 


Rtairfd. 


Accession* 


Shelf  No. 


THE 


PHILOSOPHICAL    BASIS 


OF 


THEISM 


AN  EXAMINATION  OF  THE  PERSONALITY  OF  MAN  TO  ASCERTAIN  HIS  CAPACITY  TO 

KNOW  AND  SERVE  GOD,  AND  THE  VALIDITY  OF  THE  PRINCIPLES 

UNDERLYING  THE  DEFSKCLE  OF  THELSM 


UNIVEESITY 


SAMUEL  HARRIS,  D.D,  LL.D. 

PROFESSOR    OF   SYSTEMATIC   THEOLOGY    IN    THE    THEOLOGICAL   DEPARTMENT    OF   YALE    COLLEGE 


NEW    YOEK 

CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 
1883. 


COPYRIGHT   BY 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS. 

f/.3 

1883. 


GRANT,  FAIRKS  &  RODGERS, 

KLKCTBOTYPERS  &  PRINTERS. 

Philadelphia. 


TO 


WHO   IN   SUCCESSIVE   CLASSES  HAVE   BEEN 
UNDER   MY   INSTRUCTION 

IN    PHILOSOPHY    AND    THEOLOGY   IN    BOWDOIN    COLLEGE 

~\<*i    \>       - 

AND   IN 

BANGOR   AND  YALE   THEOLOGICAL  SCHOOLS 

THIS   BOOK   IS 
RESPECTFULLY   DEDICATED. 


PREFACE. 


When  I  began  to  give  instruction  in  systematic  theology,  the 
discussions  in  the  class-room  were  continually  forcing  us  back  to 
preliminary  philosophical  questions,  pertaining  to  the  reality,  pro- 
cesses and  limits  of  human  knowledge,  and  to  the  constitution  of 
man  as  a  personal  being.  I  thus  found  it  would  facilitate  our 
work  to  treat  these  questions  together  in  a  course  of  preliminary 
lectures  on  the  Philosophical  Basis  of  Theism.  Students  in 
successive  classes  have  found  these  lectures  and  discussions  helpful 
both  in  their  studies  of  Apologetics,  Theodicy  and  the  Philosophy 
of  Religion  and  in  the  clear  and  intelligent  apprehension  of  the 
Christian  truth  and  life.  Many  of  them,  from  year  to  year,  have 
assured  me  that  they  had  been  greatly  helped  by  them  and  have 
expressed  their  earnest  desire  for  their  publication.  From  these 
annual  lectures  and  discussions  this  volume  has  grown  up.  I 
publish  it,  partly  because,  with  the  volume  before  us  as  a  text 
book  to  refer  to,  I  shall  have  more  time  for  examining  with  my 
classes  the  subjects  which  belong  more  distinctively  to  systematic 
theology ;  and  also  with  the  hope  that  discussions,  which  have 
already  been  helpful  to  many  young  men,  may  be  of  service  to 
others  who  are  striving  to  solve  the  great  theological  and  religious 
problems  of  our  times. 

Yale  Divinity  School,  June  23,  1883. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

1.  DESIGN  OF  THE  BOOK 1 

2.  NEED  OF  IT. — I.  The  question  being,  does  a  personal  God  exist,  we  must 

first  ascertain  what  personality  is. — II.  The  ultimate  question  with  the 
atheist  pertains  to  the  reality  of  knowledge.  Atheism  denies  that  man 
can  know  God.  Atheism  rests  its  denial  on  false  theories  of  know- 
ledge. Every  atheistic  theory  of  knowledge  involves  agnosticism.  The 
real  question  with  the  atheist. — III.  False  positions  of  Christian  theo- 
logians.—IV.  Results  to  be  attained 3-9 


CHAPTER  II. 
KNOWLEDGE    AND    AGNOSTICISM. 

3.  WHAT  KNOWLEDGE  is.— Implies  subject,  object  and  knowledge.    Is  always 

the  intellectual  equivalent  of  reality.  Is  a  primitive  act,  incapable  of 
definition.  Known  in  the  act  of  knowing 10 

4.  AGNOSTICISM.— Partial  agnosticism  involves  complete 10-11 

5.  REALITY  OF  KNOWLEDGE.— I.  A  primitive  datum  of  consciousness.  I.Man's 

knowledge  of  himself  and  his  environment.  Objection  that  this  is  not 
a  demonstration  answered.  2.  Knowledge  of  first  principles.  3.  Know- 
ledge of  God.  4.  The  Ego,  the  World,  and  God.  5.  In  what  sense  from 
experience. — II.  Agnosticism  not  tenable.  Denies  the  trustworthiness  of 
human  intelligence.  Contradicts  universal  consciousness.  Not  defen- 
sible by  argument.  Is  self-contradictory — Hegel's  maxim.  Continuous 
equipoise  of  thought  impossible. — III.  Any  theory  of  knowledge  in- 
volving agnosticism  is  false.  . 11-20 

6.  KNOWLEDGE  AND  FALLIBILITY. — Objection  stated. — I.  Answer  that  it 

involves  agnosticism. — II.  Assumes  as  fact  what  is  contrary  to  uni- 
versal experience.— III.  The  rational  ground  for  persistent  belief.— IV. 
A  nucleus  of  knowledge  within  a  zone  of  probability. — V.  A  great  mass 
of  knowledge  persists.  Changes  in  the  progress  of  physical  science. 
Changes  in  the  progress  of  philosophy.  Changes  in  the  progress  of 

religious  belief. 20-26 

vii 


jii  CONTENTS. 

7.  CRITERIA  OF  PRIMITIVE   KNOWLEDGE. — I.  Self-evidence. — II.  Impossi- 

bility of  thinking  the  contrary.  Applicable  both  to  Rational  and  Pre- 
sentative  Intuition.  Primitive  belief  not  the  result  of  mental  impo- 
tence. The  unthinkable  distinguished  from  the  inconceivable.  Objec- 
tion that  God  is  unknowable  because  inconceivable. — III.  Persistence. 
— IV.  Consistency  with  all  knowledge.  Use  in  science  and  all  reflective 
thought.  Applied  to  test  primitive  knowledge 26-31 

8.  KNOWING,  FEELING  AND  WILLING.— I.  Are  distinct,  not  separate.— II. 

True  philosophy  must  recognize  the  distinctness  and  the  inseparable- 
ness.  1.  Present  tendency  to  overlook  the  inseparableness.  Exempli- 
fied in  Theology.  2.  Errors  from  overlooking  their  distinctness.  In 
what  sense  feeling  is  said  to  be  a  kind  of  knowing.  Feeling  and  willing 
not  ultimate  criteria. — III.  In  what  sense  feeling  and  willing  test  and 
verify  knowledge.  1.  In  rebutting  Spencerian  agnosticism.  2.  In  im- 
plying objective  reality.  3.  In  finding  scope  for  realizing  the  highest 
ends.  4.  The  action  of  the  individual  and  of  mankind  tests  what  is 
true. — IV.  Errors  of  skepticism  and  materialism  from  overlooking  the 
relations  of  knowing,  feeling  and  willing.  1.  Final  causes.  2.  Wrong 
conception  of  love  of  truth.  3.  Right  moral  character  favorable  to  the 
investigation  of  truth.  4.  Explains  the  fact  that  knowledge  is  advanced 
by  the  growth  or  development  of  the  man 31-43 


CHAPTER  III. 
THE  ACTS  AND  PROCESSES  OF  KNOWING. 

9.  CLASSIFICATION.— Intellect,  Sensibility  and  Will.    Intuition,  Representa- 

tion, Reflection. — I.  Faculties. — II.  The  Mind  active  in  knowing. — III. 
Element  of  intelligence  contributed  by  the  mind. — IV.  How  acts  of 
knowledge  are  distinguished 44-45 

10.  INTUITION  OR  PRIMITIVE  KNOWLEDGE. — I.   Definition. — II.   Presenta- 

tive  Intuition  and  Rational.  1.  Presentative  intuition  defined.  Includes 
sense-perception  and  self-consciousness.  2.  Rational  Intuition  defined. 
3.  Intuition  is  primitive  knowledge.  4.  Intuition  the  common  name  of 
both. — III.  The  mind  considered  as  capable  of  Rational  intuition  is  the 
Reason 45-47 

11.  REPRESENTATIVE  KNOWLEDGE. — Definition:  representation  and  memory. 

Self-evident  knowledge  in  memory.  Relation  to  other  knowledge. 
Theories  of  Huxley  and  Mill.  Physiological  Explanation 47-48 

12.  KNOWLEDGE   BY   REFLECTION   OR   THOUGHT.— I.   Definition.    1.  Pre- 

requisite that  the  object  and  regulative  principles  be  given.  2.  Pre- 
sented indeterminate.  Not  minima  visibilia.  Nebulous  matter  of  in- 
tuition. 3.  Apprehension,  Differentiation,  Integration.— II.  These 
three  the  processes  of  all  human  thinking.— III.  Thought  merely  dis- 
covers.—IV.  Subsidiary  objects  of  Thought 48-54 

13.  THOUGHT  DISTINGUISHED  BY  ITS  OBJECTS.— I.  Abstract  or  Formal.— 

II.  Concrete  or  realistic.— III.  Creative  or  Imagination.  1.  Fancy  its 
lower  form.  2.  Its  higher  form,  creates  ideals.  3.  Leads  in  every 
sphere  of  intellectual  activity.— IV.  Science  advanced  chiefly  by  con- 
crete thought.  1.  Formal  thought  inadequate  because  it  stops  in  words. 


CONTENTS.  ix 

2.  Inadequate  for  synthetic  processes  and  judgments.  3.  The  three 
axioms  of  formal  logic  insufficient.  4.  Leibnitz'  Sufficient  Keason. 
Prof.  Bowen's  three  principles.  5.  Principles  underlying  concrete 
thought.  6.  These  last  principles  at  the  basis  of  all  scientific  thought. 
7.  All  science  empirical,  philosophical  and  theological,  advanced  chiefly 
by  concrete  thought.  .' 54-61 

14.  INDUCTION*  AND  THE  NEWTONIAN  METHOD. — I.  Simple  or  Baconian  In- 

duction. 1.  Extends  knowledge  beyond  observation.  2.  The  principle 
on  which  it  rests.  Known  by  rational  intuition.  Indefinite  statements 
of  the  principle.  The  uniformity  of  Nature  defined.  3.  Distinguished 
from  erroneous  conceptions  of  it.  4.  This  brings  no  discredit  on  Induc- 
tion. 5.  Induction  and  Hume's  objection  to  miracles. — II.  The  hypo- 
thetical, or  Newtonian  Method.  1.  Differs  from  induction  in  data,  meth- 
ods and  results.  2.  Illustrated  from  common  life;  the  lost  camel.  3. 
The  hypothesis  created  by  imagination.  4.  Aided  by  previous  know- 
ledge, habits  of  observation,  analogy.  5.  Verification:  two  requisites ; 
a  third  way  sometimes.  6.  The  intuitive  principle  on  which  it  re- 
7.  Importance  and  general  use  of  this  method.  8.  Now  called  induc- 
tion; improperly  so.  9.  Neither  method  peculiar  to  physical  science. 
10.  Anticipations 61-72 

15.  RELATION  OF  REFLECTIVE  THOUGHT  TO  INTUITION.— I.  Reflection  gives 

no  elemental  material  for  thought.  1.  True  only  when  intuition  in- 
cludes presentative  and  rational.  2.  True  only  of  primitive  or  elemen- 
tal realities. — II.  Within  these  limits  knowledge  enlarged  by  thought. 
— III.  Can  discover  the  unknown  only  by  the  known. — IV.  Reflective 
knowledge  always  preceded  by  spontaneous  knowledge.  1.  In  what 
sense  faith  precedes  knowledge.  Not  peculiarly  applicable  to  religious 
knowledge.  2.  No  Faith-faculty  as  the  distinctive  organ  of  religious 
belief.  3.  Various  meanings  of  faith.  4.  Belief  of  Testimony. — V. 
Reflection  and  experience  become  spontaneous  in  common  sense.  .  .  72-81 

16.  RELATION  OF  REFLECTIVE  THOUGHT  TO  UNIVERSAL  REASON.— The 

universe  is  grounded  in  and  the  manifestation  of  Reason. — I.  This  the 
ultimate  ground  of  knowledge  by  inference  and  by  induction. — II.  Only 
by  this  can  thought  solve  its  ultimate  problem.  1.  Thought  culminates 
in  finding  the  unity  of  the  manifold.  2.  Must  be  the  unity  of  rational 
system.  3.  Possible  only  in  recognizing  a  personal  God. — III.  Primary 
motive  of  scientific  investigation.  Kant's  three  questions  of  philosophy.81-85 

17.  PROBABILITY.— I.  Assent  according  to  degree  of  evidence.— II.  When  the 

improbability  is  slight,  it  is  unnoticed. — III.  Assent  on  probable  evi- 
dence a  guide  to  conduct. — IV.  No  peculiar  significance  in  application 
to  religious  belief. 85-87 


CHAPTER  IV. 
WHAT  IS  KNOWN  THROUGH  PRESENTATIVE  INTUITION. 

18.  WHAT  is  KNOWN  THROUGH  SENSE-PERCEPTION 88-91 

19.  WHAT  is  KNOWN  THROUGH  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.— I.  Object,  subject 

and  knowledge  known  simultaneously.     Essential  in  every  act  of  know- 
ing.   Object  and  subject  are  two  realities  known  in  one  intellectual  act. 


:  CONTENTS. 

Implicit  or  virtual  consciousness.  Formulas  expressing  direct  and  in- 
verse knowledge. — II.  Knowledge  of  our  own  mental  operations. 
Comte's  objection.  Answer.— III.  The  mind  has  knowledge  of  itself. 
1.  The  error  that  the  operations  may  be  known,  not  the  mind.  2.  Error 
that  we  are  more  certain  of  the  operations  of  the  mind.  3.  Error  that 
mind  is  a  series  of  states  of  consciousness.  4.  Mind  conscious  of  self 
only  in  its  operations. — IV.  Individuality  and  identity  known  in  con- 
sciousness.— V.  Rationality  and  Freedom  known  in  consciousness.  At- 
tributes of  Personality.  Knowledge  of  personality  positive  not  negative. 
Can  know  others  as  persons.  Knowledge  of  self  as  person  prerequisite 
to  knowing  God 91-99 

20.  KANT'S  THING  is  ITSELF.— Statement  of  his  doctrine.— I.  Phenomenal- 

ism his  fundamental  error. — II.  Error  of  presenting  noumenon  and 
phenomenon  in  an  antithesis  and  reciprocally  exclusive.  Origin  of  two 
incompatible  types  of  thought. — III.  Misinterprets  and  contradicts  con- 
sciousness.— IV.  Not  a  noumenon  or  necessary  idea  of  reason.  1.  Is  an 
attempt  to  conceive  of  substance  without  properties.  2.  The  postula- 
tion  contrary  to  reason.  3.  Assumes  creation  in  thought  of  an  element 
not  given  in  intuition.  —  V.  Discredits  Reason  by  making  its  ideas 
fictitious. — VI.  Involves  absurdity.  No  knowledge  if  a  mind  knowing. 
Knowledge  of  the  unknowable  the  condition  of  knowing.  Implies  a 
faculty  above  reason  to  criticise  it.  The  only  way  in  which  Reason  can 
be  discredited. — VII.  Issues  in  agnosticism 99-109 

21.  RELATIVITY  OF  KNOWLEDGE.— I.  Objection  stated.    First  form.    Second 

form.  Third  form. — II.  Answer  to  Third  form.  1.  Answered  by  $$  18, 
19,  20.  2.  The  statement  of  the  objection  implies  knowledge  of 
reality.  3.  Involves  absurdity.  4.  Issues  in  agnosticism.  .  .  .  109-113 


CHAPTER  V. 
WHAT  IS  KNOWN  THROUGH  RATIONAL  INTUITION. 

§  22.  UNIVERSAL  PRINCIPLES  NOT  PARTICULAR  REALITIES 114-115 

§  23.  RISE  AND  DEVELOPMENT  IN  CONSCIOUSNESS.— I.  Are  constituent  ele- 
ments of  reason. — II.  Appear  in  consciousness  on  occasion  in  experi- 
ence.— III.  Regulate  thought  and  action  before  they  are  recognized  in 
thought. — IV.  Not  innate  ideas.  Dr.  Biichner's  mistake.  .  .  .  115-117 

g  24.  SIGNIFICANCE  AS  REGULATIVE.— I.  Significant  only  as  applied  to  beings. 
Distinguished  from  Mysticism. — II.  Do  not  guarantee  correctness  of 
judgment.  Objection  that  the  ancients  believed  antipodes  impossible. 
Objection  by  Helmholz. — III.  Determine  the  possible  and  the  impos- 
sible. 1.  What  is  possible  to  thought.  2.  What  is  possible  for  will- 
power to  effect.  3.  What  is  possible  in  nature.  .  • 117-121 

g  25.  VALIDITY  OF  RATIONAL  INTUITIONS.— I.  Sustain  all  the  criteria  of  pri- 
mitive knowledge.— II.  Indispensable  in  Reasoning. -III.  Verified  in 
experience.  In  common  sense.  In  physical  science.  Exemplified  in 
Mathematics.  Prof.  Clifford's  objection.  This  verification  continually 
going  on. — IV.  Essential  to  interpret  sense-perception. — V.  Objection 
that  not  universally  believed.  1.  Unknown  to  infants  and  savages.  2. 


CONTENTS.  xj 

Not  necessarily  believed  by  the  cultivated;  J.  S.  Mill's  objection. 
Inane  objections. — VI.  Objection  that  they  are  self-contradictory;  1. 
Kant's  Antinomies  explained ;  Prof.  Clifford's  use  of  them.  Hamilton's 
use  of  them.  Hansel's  use  of  them.  2.  If  the  objector's  assertion  is 
true  the  objection  is  fatal;  but  it  is  the  only  objection.  The  objection 
itself  appeals  to  the  authority  of  reason.  3.  The  antinomies  rightly  un- 
derstood are  not  contradictions  but  complemental  truths;  examples. 
4.  The  true  argument  from  the  antinomies.  Kant's  explanation  of  it  ; 
and  why  inadequate.  5.  H.  Spencer's  Antinomy  and  agnosticism.  6. 
Kant's  admission  as  to  his  phenomenalism. — VII.  Objection  that  ra- 
tional intuitions  arise  from  the  experience  of  the  individual  by  associ- 
ation of  ideas.  Statement  of  Mill.  Statement  of  Diderot.  1.  Individual 
experience  inadequate  to  account  for  them.  2.  If  thus  arising,  they  would 
be  inveterate  prejudices.  3.  Falls  into  subjective  idealism  and  agnosti- 
cism. 4.  Has  been  found  inadequate  and  is  abandoned. — VIII.  Objection 
that  they  are  the  result  of  the  experience  of  the  race  in  its  evolution.  1. 
Admits  they  are  now  constitutional  and  a  priori  to  the  individual.  2 
Admits  they  are  valid  and  give  real  knowledge.  3.  If  so,  their  origin  is 
of  minor  consequence.  4.  Evolution  does  not  account  for  them.  5.  Ob- 
jection that  evolution  reaches  back  of  the  primitive  man.  6.  Laws  of 
thought  not  in  continuous  flux. — IX.  Objection  that  rational  intuitions 
are  subjective  and  illusive.  1.  Is  a  specific  application  of  the  theory  of 
relativity  of  knowledge.  2.  Incompatible  with  the  theory  of  ancestral 
experience.  3.  Without  rational  intuitions  knowledge  is  disintegrated 
into  subjective  impressions.  4.  Reason  is  everywhere  and  always  the 
same. — X.  The  validity  of  rational  intuitions  involves  the  existence  of  su- 
preme and  absolute  Reason.  1.  Truth  has  no  significance  except  as  a 
mind  is  its  subject.  2.  These  principles  not  peculiar  to  an  individual. 
3.  They  have  reality  only  as  truths  of  absolute  Reason.  4.  Reason  in 
man  the  same  as  in  God.  5.  Christian  Theism  explains  and  confirms 
them  by  the  truth  that  man  is  in  the  image  of  God.  6.  Objection ;  this  is 
anthropomorphism.  7.  Objection;  this  involves  Pantheism. — XI.  The 
only  reasonable  explanation  is  that  the  intuitive  principles  are  truths  of 
Reason.  Failure  of  the  three  empirical  positions  exhausts  the  resources 
of  empiricism. — XII.  Three  conditions  of  the  possibility  of  science. — 
XIII.  Atheism  rests  on  some  theory  involving  agnosticism.  .  .  121-151 


CHAPTER  VI. 
THE  ULTIMATE  REALITIES  OF  HUMAN  KNOWLEDGE. 

26.  MEANING  OF  ULTIMATE  REALITIES.— Categories :  Aristotle's  use  of  the 

word  and  Kant's 152 

27.  MATTER  AND  FORM.— Plato's  "  Ideas."— Kant's  error  as  to   forms  and 

categories.    The  true  position 152-153 

28.  CLASSIFICATION.— The  two  classes    and    their    subdivisions,   and  why. 

Aristotle's  classification  of  categories.     Knowledge  begins  as  knowledge 
of  particular  beings ;  issues  in  knowledge  of  the  Absolute  Being.       153-154 


xij  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  VII. 

ULTIMATE  REALITIES  PRIMARILY  KNOWN  IN  PERCEPTIVE  INTUI- 
TION; BEING  AND  ITS  MODES  OF  EXISTENCE. 

$  29.  BEING. — I.  Known  in  perceptive  intuition  and  cannot  be  denned  other- 
wise.—II.  Is  a  particular  or  determinate  being.— III.  In  perceptive  intui- 
tion known  as  existing  in  various  modes ;  in  rational  intuition  known 
by  reason  in  its  true  significance  and  reality. — IV.  Known  in  its  whole 
reality  as  substance  and  quality.  The  Greek  usage.  Does  everything 
flow?  substance,  persistence,  existence.  Not  essential  to  being  that  it 
be  eternal,  self- existent,  etc.  Synthesis  of  being  and  phenomenon. — V. 
Being  is  fundamental ;  all  other  realities  pertain  to  being.  Aristotle's 
genera  of  Being.  The  concrete  determinate  Being  is  the  unit  of  know- 
ledge   155-158 

$  30.  MODES  OF  EXISTENCE. — I.  Power.  Power  in  motion ;  intellectual  power ; 
will-power.  Quality.  Substance  and  cause.  Power  hypostasized.  James 
Mill's  denial  of  power.  Cause:  agent,  transitive,  reactive,  free.  Object 
or  recipient. — II.  One  and  many.  1.  Individuality  and  identity;  origin 
of  the  ideas.  Does  not  imply  simplicity.  In  what  sense  indivisible. 
Belief  in  existence  after  death  from  belief  of  personal  individuality 
and  identity,  not  from  shadows  and  dreams.  2.  The  individual  and 
other  beings.  Knowledge  of  the  outward  object.  Things  and  persons. 
3.  Number ;  origin  of  the  idea. — III.  Extension  in  space.  Origin  of  the 
idea.  Not  a  subjective  form  of  sense  but  a  form  of  things.  The  fourth 
dimension  of  space. — IV.  Duration  in  time. — V.  Quantity. — VI.  Differ- 
ence and  relation 158-167 

|  31.  INFERENCES. — I.  Knowledge  ontological  in  its  beginning.  Critical  point 
against  agnosticism. — II.  Knowledge  begins  as  knowledge  of  personal 
beings  and  impersonal.  Mansel's  objection.  Excludes  materialism  and 
idealism.  Kant's  phenomenalism.  J.  G.  Fichte's  attempt  to  avoid  it  by 
knowledge  of  self.  Hegel's  attempt  to  avoid  it.  His  near  approach  to  the 
true  philosophy  and  his  failure.  These  failures  prove  that  knowledge 
must  begin  ontological  if  it  ever  becomes  so. — III.  Knowledge  begins  as 
knowledge  of  determinate  being.  1.  Excludes  the  error  that  being  is 
primarily  in  the  genus  or  the  universal.  2.  Being  is  not  the  one  onlj*  sub- 
stance of  pantheism.  3.  Finite  persons  and  things  are  real  beings. — IV. 
Being  is  not  an  attribute  but  the  subject  of  attributes.  Not  the  sum 
total  of  all  attributes.  Affirmation  of  being  not  the  weakest  of  affirma- 
tions. Attributes  common  to  all  beings. — V.  Determinateness  of  being 
is  not  limitation.  Omnis  determinatio  negatio  est.  The  fallacy  of  ag- 
nostics and  pantheists  in  reasoning  from  this  maxim.  God  determinate 
but  not  limited. — VI.  Origin  and  necessity  in  perceptive  intuition  of  the 
distinction  of  science  into  physical  and  metaphysical 167-179 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
THE  TRUE:  THE  FIRST  ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON. 

§  32.  THE  FIVE  ULTIMATE  IDEAS  OF  REASON.— Meaning.  Nouraena.  The 
Five  Realities  of  rational  Intuition  named  and  defined.  Rational  Intui- 
tion does  not  give  knowledge  of  being 180-182 


CONTENTS.  xiii 

33.  THE  TRUE:  THE  FIRST  NORM  OR  STANDARD  OF  REASON.— I.  Defini- 
tion.— II.  Are  principles  of  things  as  well  as  of  thought.  Are  archety- 
pal in  Absolute  Reason ;  Plato's  Ideas.  Rational  beings  know  the  su- 
preme reason 182-184 


CHAPTER  IX. 

THE  RIGHT,  OR  LAW:  THE  SECOND  ULTIMATE  REALITY  OF 

REASON. 

34.  GENERAL  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  RIGHT  OR  LAW.— Definition  of  Law.— I. 
Law  to  intellectual  and  physical  power.  1.  Determine  what  it  is  possi- 
ble for  power  to  effect.  Laws  of  thought.  Laws  of  Physical  Power.  2. 
Definition  of  Right.  3.  Law  of  nature  as  commonly  used,  distinguished 
from  Rational  Law.  4.  Some  so  called  laws  of  nature  are  laws  of  rea- 
son.—II.  Principles  of  Reason  are  laws  to  Will.  1.  Declare  what  the 
will  ought  to  do.  2.  Right  denotes  conformity  of  action  of  will  with 
law.  3.  Truth  as  Law  to  will  is  moral  law.— III.  Common  characteris- 
tics of  Law  to  thought,  force,  and  will 185-187 

3">.  ETHICAL  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  RIGHT  AND  LAW.— I.  Origin.— II.  Signifi- 
cance of  Ethical  Terms.  1.  Ought,  Obligation,  Duty.  2.  Right  3. 
Law.  4.  Authority.  5.  Government.  Moral  Law  distinguished  from 
statute  law. — III.  Ethical  principles  are  of  the  highest  certainty  .  187-190 

36.  MORAL  LAW  UNIVERSAL,  IMMUTABLE,  IMPERATIVE. — I.  Because  it  is 

truth  of  Reason  known  as  law  to  action.  -II.  Implies  tl  :e  existence  of 
God,  the  Absolute  Reason. — III. Falsehood  and  absurdity  the  intellectual 
basis  of  wrong  doing. — IV.  Law  requires  conformity  to  the  constitution 
of  things. — V.  Transgression  must  issue  in  failure  and  loss. — VI.  En- 
forced by  penalty. — VII.  Answer  to  the  objection  that  intuitive  ethics 
is  void  of  significance 190-193 

37.  INTUITIVE  ETHICS  DISTINGUISHED  FROM  FALSE  THEORIES. — I.  Theories 

of  association  of  ideas.— II.  Theories  attempting  to  derive  the  idea  of 
right  from  happiness.— III.  That  moral  distinctions  originate  in  the  feel- 
ings.—IV.  Hutcheson's  theory  of  the  Moral  Sense.— V.  That  moral  dis- 
tinctions rest  on  the  will  of  God.— VI.  That  truth  and  law  are  eternal  in 
the  nature  of  things  independent  of  God 193-203 

38.  THE  FORMAL  PRINCIPLE  OF  THE  LAW  AND  THE  REAL.— I.  The  formal 

principle  of  the  Law.— II.  The  Real  Principle. — III.  The  significance 
and  necessity  of  the  formal  principle.  1.  Gives  the  distinctively  ethical 
ideas.  2.  Declares  the  real  principle  to  be  law.  3.  Gives  the  aspect  of 
virtue  as  obedience  to  law  or  doing  duty.  4.  Gives  the  aspect  of  virtue 
as  harmony  of  the  will  with  reason.  5.  Recognizes  virtue  as  harmony 
with  God  and  the  constitution  of  the  universe.— IV.  Significance  and 
necessity  of  the  real  principle.  Without  it  no  knowledge  what  the  law 
requires.  Without  it  duty,  if  known,  would  be  done  without  love.  So 
done  it  is  debasing  as  a  blind  obedience.  The  will  consents  to  the  formal 
principle  only  in  the  act  of  love 203-207 

39.  EVIDENCE  THAT  THE  REAL  PRINCIPLE  OF  THE  LAW  is  THE  LAW  OF  LOVE. 

I.  So  declared  by  Christ.— II.  The  rational  ground  is  that  man  exists  in  a 


xiy  CONTENTS. 

rational  system.  In  such  a  system  selfishness  is  absurd. — III.  Know- 
ledge of  the  moral  system  being  presupposed  the  knowledge  of  the  law  of 
love  is  by  rational  intuition.  1.  Arises  on  occasion  in  experience  in  a 
particular  case  and  is  operative  before  it  is  recognized  or  formulated.  2. 
The  application  varies  with  the  conception  of  the  system.  3.  Its  full 
Christian  meaning  presupposes  the  idea  of  a  universal  moral  system 
under  one  God.  4.  Sin  and  evil  in  self-isolation. — IV.  Man's  subjection 
to  the  law  of  love  indicated  in  his  constitutional  sensibilities.  Egoistic 
and  altruistic  sensibilities. — V.  Verified  in  experience.  1.  The  solidarity 
of  mankind  a  fact  known  in  experience.  2.  That  obedience  to  law  of 
love  promotes  the  highest  good  is  verified  by  experience.  3.  The  theory 
that  the  good  is  attained  in  selfishness  logically  issues  in  pessimism. 
VI.  Confirmed  by  the  common  consent  of  mankind.  1.  Practically  re- 
cognized when  not  formulated.  2.  Acknowledged  by  thinkers  whose 
principles  it  contradicts.  3.  Attested  by  deniers  of  Christianity.  4. 
Confirmed  by  scholarly  investigation  of  religion,  philosophy  and  liter- 
tare. — VII.  Objections:  1.  No  agreement  in  moral  sentiments.  Agree 
in  principle  differ  as  to  its  application.  The  same  act  of  different  signifi- 
cance in  different  cases.  2.  Savage  tribes  destitute  of  moral  ideas.  If 
so,  undeveloped ;  children  of  larger  growth.  No  evidence  sufficient  to 
establish  it.  Testimony  of  Anthropologists 207-226 

CHAPTER  X. 
THE  PERFECT:    THIRD  ULTIMATE  REALITY  OR  IDEA  OF  REASON. 

40.  OKIGIN  AND  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE  IDEA.— Implies  a  rational  standard. 

Is  the  Norm  for  the  realization  of  all  creations  of  mind 227 

41.  IDEALS.— I.  Definition.    Distinguished  from  a  conceit  of  fancy.— II.  The 

material  given  in  experience,  the  creation  guided  by  Reason;  a  crea- 
tion not  a  copy. — III.  Nearer  to  perfection  than  the  object.  Truth  to 
nature. — IV.  Possible  only  by  virtue  of  reason. — V.  Practical  import- 
ance of  ideals 227-230 

42.  BEAUTY  AS  KNOWN  BY  THE  REASON,  OR  PRINCIPLES  OF  ESTHETICS. 

— I.  Beauty  defined.  1.  Is  perfection  revealed.  2.  Revealed  in  some  con- 
crete object.  3.  Revealed  in  a  finite  object.  4.  Objects  are  beautiful  in  dif- 
ferent degrees.— II.  Beauty  the  outshining  of  truth.— III.  Beauty  dis- 
tinguished by  the  modes  of  existence  in  which  it  is  revealed.— IV.  All 
beauty  is  spiritual  beauty.  1.  Reveals  a  spiritual  ideal.  2.  True  of 
beauty  of  nature  as  well  as  of  beauty  of  art.  Nature  a  medium  for  the 
expression  of  spiritual  ideals.  3.  Beauty  of  the  human  form  analogous 
to  that  of  natural  objects.  4.  Higher  type  of  beauty  of  the  human  form. 
5.  The  Cosmos  beautiful  as  the  expression  of  a  pervasive  spiritual  pre- 
sence. 6.  Admission  of  Evolutionists  compared  with  the  rational  phil- 
osophy.—V.  Beauty  has  objective  reality.— VI.  Beauty  manifested  only 
to  rational  beings.  In  what  sense  the  mind  creates  the  beauty  which  it 
perceives. — VII.  Universal  standard  of  beauty.  1.  Authority  :  Goethe, 
Plato,  Geo.  Eliot.  2.  Inferred  from  principles  already  stated.  Ana- 
logous recognition  of  the  universal  reason  in  all  science.  Unity  of  specu- 
lative, ethical,  and  sesthetical  philosophy.  3.  Models.  4.  Objections. 
—VIII.  Sublimity.— IX.  The  ugly.— X.  .Esthetic  emotion  consequent 
on  intellectual  idea.  230-243 


CONTENTS.  xv 

43.  .ESTHETIC  EMOTIONS.— I.  Distinguished  from  other  feelings,  natural  or 

rational.— II.  Prompts  to  share  with  others.— III.  The  mind  is  in  the 
attitude  of  a  seer;  emotion  in  view  of  the  expressiveness  of  things. 
IV.  Emotions  with  which  aesthetic  emotions  are  often  improperly 
confounded.  1.  Wonder.  '2.  Certain  merely  agreeable  sensations.  3. 
Pleasure  of  excitement. — V.  Emotions  of  sublimity. — VI.  Emotions 
awakened  by  the  ugly 243-248 

44.  ^ESTHETIC  CULTURE , 248-250 

45.  ^ESTHETICS  AND  THEISM 250-251 

46.  ERRONEOUS  THEORIES.— I.  Variety  of  them.      Burke's.— II.  Theory  of 

Association.— III.  Theory  of  Prof.  A.  Bain 251-255 


CHAPTER  XL 

THE  GOOD :  THE  FOURTH  ULTIMATE  REALITY  KNOWN 
THROUGH  THE  REASON. 

47.  THE  QUESTION  STATED. — I.  Definition  of  terms :   happiness,  well-being. 

II.  Occasion  of  the  rise  of  the  idea  of  good  and  evil. — III.  Necessity  of 
a  criterion.  — IV.  Two  answers  as  to  what  is  the  good  and  its  criterion. 
1.  Hedonism:  good  is  enjoyment   measured  by  quantity.     2.  Good  is 
worth  estimated  by  rational  standard.— V.  The  empirical  and  rational 
elements.— VI.  The  greatest  good  and  the  true  good 256-258 

48.  HEDONISM  is  FALSE. — Various  ethical  theories  more  or  less  Hedonistic. 

I.  Necessary  outcome  of  Sensationalism;  incompatible  with  Rational- 
ism.— II.  False  maxim  that  the  ultimate  motive  is  the  desire  of  happi- 
ness. 1.  Every  desire  has  its  specific  object.  2.  Motives  are  many,  not 
merely  one.  3.  Any  one  passion  may  gain  ascendency.  4.  Incompati- 
ble with  free-will.  5.  Incompatible  with  subjectivity  of  happiness. 

III.  False  maxim  that  all   pleasures  are  of  the  same  kind.     1.  Enjoy- 
ments discriminated :  by  their  sources  ;  by  their  tendencies.    2.  Enjoy- 
ments not  essentially  good  and  may  be  evil.    3.  Enjoyments  distin- 
guished as    to  essential  worth.      4.  Common  sense  rejects  the  Hedon- 
istic   maxim. — IV.  Hedonism  gives   no  test  to  discriminate  superior 
good  from  inferior,  as  to  degree. — V.    Incompatible  with  distinction 

of  right  and  wrong 258-266 

49.  THE  GOOD  ESTIMATED  BY  REASON.— I.  The  rational  standard  defined.— II. 

The  rational  idea  is  that  of  worthiness  or  worth. — III.  Presupposes  the 
ideas  of  the  true,  the  right,  the  perfect,— IV.  Distinction  of  good  from 
evil,  eternal  and  immutable. — V.  Error  of  Ethics  confounding  the  good 
and  the  right. — VI.  The  question  as  to  the  true  good  distinguished 
from  that  as  to  the  highest  good. — VII.  Worth  estimated  by  reason 
distinguished  from  value  in  political  economy.— VIII.  Good  is  the  ob- 
ject acquired,  not  the  object  served.  Teleology 266-271 

50.  IN  WHAT  THE  GOOD  RATIONALLY  ESTIMATED  CONSISTS.— I.  In  what  the 

essential  good  consists.  1.  Personal  perfection.  Inference  from  the 
foregoing.  Begins  in  right  moral  character.  Right  choice  the  essential 
germ  of  character  is  good  in  itself.  Development  of  all  the  powers  to 
perfection.  Realized  only  by  action  in  love.  No  absolute  perfection 
to  the  finite  but  progressive.  2.  Harmony  with  himself,  with  God,  and 


xvi  CONTENTS 

the  constitution  of  things.  3.  The  happiness  necessarily  resulting.  4. 
These  three  distinguishable  but  inseparable.  5.  Stoicism  excluding  hap- 
piness is  false.  False  ethics  resulting.  Objections  of  Hedonism  are 
against  this  error.  Hedonism  excludes  the  rational  element  of  good; 
Christian  Ethics  recognizes  both  elements.  —  II.  Relative  good.  —  III.  The 
evil.  Essential.  Relative.  —  IV.  A  man's  good  is  in  his  own  power.  271-281 

$  51.  MERIT  AND  DEMERIT.  —  I.  Definition.  —  II.  He  that  merits  true  good  attains 
it.  1.  Because  reason  is  supreme  in  the  universe.  2.  Every  right  act  receives 
immediate  reward.  3.  Answer  to  objection  from  the  inequalities  of  this 
life.  4.  The  true  good  is  the  highest  good  .........  281-283 

I  52.  THE  FEELINGS  PERTAINING  TO  THE  IDEA  OF  THE  GOOD.—  I.  The  feel- 
ings presuppose  the  idea.  —  II.  Subdivisions  :  '  1.  Self-respect.  2.  Pru- 
dential. The  two  are  called  self-love  ...........  283-284 

I  53.  PRACTICAL  IMPORTANCE  IN  THE  CONDUCT  OF  LIFE  ......    284-285 


CHAPTEE  XII. 
FIFTH  ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON. 

54.  THE  ABSOLUTE.  —  I.  Definition.  —  II.  Known  by  rational  intuition  arising 

in  the  effort  to  complete  the  process  of  thought  in  any  line  of  investiga- 
tion. In  the  back-ground  of  human  consciousness  and  at  the  basis  of 
knowledge.  Opens  a  new  sphere  of  reality.  —  III.  What  the  absolute  is, 
is  known  not  a  priori,  but  only  in  its  accounting  for  man  and  nature. 
The  absolute  is  the  All-conditioning.  Kant's  objection.  Significance  if 
explained  as  the  registered  experience  of  the  race  transmitted  by 
heredity  ......................  286-288 

55.  THE  PSEUDO-ABSOLUTE.—  I.  The  Pseudo-absolute  ;  some  forms  originate  in 

attempting  to  develop  the  idea  a  priori;  others  from  developing  it  em- 
pirically; the  sum  total  of  all  things  mistaken  for  the  Absolute;  also  the 
largest  logical  concept.  —  II.  Current  objections  founded  on  false  ideas  of 
the  Absolute.  1.  The  Absolute  is  "pure  being"  "the  thing  in  itself," 
"out  of  all  relations."  2.  Objections  founded  on  the  false  idea  of  the 
Absolute  as  "the  ALL,"  or  sum  total  of  all  things.  3.  Agnostic  objec- 
tion that  personality  is  incompatible  with  the  absolute  .....  289-291 

56.  PERSONALITY  OF  THE  ABSOLUTE.—  I.  The  Absolute  may  be  a  person.— 

II.  The  Absolute  must  be  a  person  ............    291-292 

CHAPTEE  XIII. 
THREE  GRADES  OF  SCIENTIFIC  KNOWLEDGE. 

57.  DEFINITION  OF  SCIENCE  ................    293-294 

58.  THE   THREE  GRADES   DEFINED—  I.  First  Grade:    Empirical  Science. 

Its  two  divisions.  —  II.  The  Second  Grade  :  Noetic  or  Rationalistic  science. 
Why  called  Noetic.  Three  divisions  of  it.  1.  Mathematics.  J.  S.  Mill 
that  Mathematical  axioms  learned  by  experience.  2.  Logic.  3.  Phi- 
losophy. Subdivisions:  Speculative,  Ethical,  ^Esthetic,  Teleological.  — 

III.  Third  Grade:  Theology.—  IV.  Must  pass  through  all  three  in  the 
complete  knowledge  of  any  being.  —  V.  Knowledge  in  each  grade  is  sci- 
ence.    Appropriation  of  "science"  to  natural  science  only.   .     .     .     294-301 


CONTENTS.  xvii 

59.  PKOOF  OF  THE  DOCTRINE.— I.  From  the  constitution  of  the  mind.    1. 

Why  it  begins  as  Empirical  science.  2.  Why  two  spheres  of  mind  and 
matter  opened  in  perceptive  intuition.  3.  Rational  intuition  necessitates 
noetic  and  theological. — II.  Common  recognition  in  history  of  thought. 
III.  Reciprocal  dependence.  .  .  .  * 301-304 

60.  HARMONY  OF  THE  THREE. — I.  Science  in  a  lower  grade,  depends  on  the 

principles  of  the  higher.  1.  Empirical  science  depends  on  rational  in- 
tuitions. 2.  Noetic  science  depends  on  Theology.  3.  Theology  contains 
its  principles  in  itself. — II.  Science  in  a  higher  grade  depends  on  the 
lower  for  content.  1.  Noetic  science  depends  on  empirical  for  content. 
Also  for  discipline  in  empirical  methods.  2.  Theology  depends  on  noetic 
and  empirical  science.  Cannot  develop  the  idea  of  the  absolute  a  priori. 
Misrepresentation  of  Theological  method.  3.  Source  of  contents  of  Em- 
pirical.— III.  Science  in  a  lower  grade  raises  questions  for  science  in  a 
higher  grade  to  answer.  1.  Empirical.  2.  Noetic.  Theology  ulti- 
mate.— IV.  Also  depends  on  the  higher  grade,  to  complete  the  unity  of 
thought  and  things. — V.  Scientific  thought  legitimately  culminates  in 
Theology. — VI.  Science  in  a  higher  grade  stimulates  inquiry  in  the 
lower. — VII.  Claim  that  empirical  natural  science  alone  is  science. — 
VIII.  Science  in  the  three  grades  must  be  in  harmony  with  itself.  304-319 

61.  THE  ALLEGED  CONFLICT  OF  NATURAL  SCIENCE  AND  THEOLOGY.— I. 

Arises  only  from  error  or  ignorance.  1.  From  incompleteness  of  know- 
ledge incidental  to  its  progressiveness.  2.  From  error  of  method.  3. 
From  the  claim  of  science  in  one  grade  to  be  the  whole  of  knowledge. — 
II.  Reconciliation  possible  only  by  correcting  error  and  attaining  know- 
ledge of  truth.  1.  How  to  meet  the  exclusive  claim  of  natural  science. 
2.  The  alleged  error  of  method.  3.  How  to  treat  conflict  arising  from 
ignorance  or  error.— III.  The  alleged  historical  antagonism  exagger- 
ated. 1.  The  great  natural  scientists  have  been  believers.  2.  Theo- 
logical antagonism  to  scientific  discovery  comparatively  rare.  The  real 
influence  of  Christianity  on  civilization.  3.  Discoveries  more  opposed 
by  scientists  than  by  theologians.— IV.  Correction  of  theological  opinion 
to  meet  discoveries  in  science.— V.  Principle  as  to  the  competence  of 
non-scientists  to  reason  on  scientific  discoveries. — VI.  Legitimate  to 
oppose  atheism  and  agnosticism  promulgated  under  the  guise  of  science. 

I.  Because  the  promulgator  transcends  empirical  science.     2.  Danger  of 
a  scientific  hierarchy.     3.  Legitimate  moral  interest  in  opposing  atheism. 
4.  Is  not  opposition  to  science  but  to  atheism.— VII.  No  extraordinary 
reason  for  alarm  now.     1.  Overlooking  God's  action  in  it.     2.  Skepticism 
not  more  prevalent  now  than  in  former  epochs  of  skepticism.     3.  Epochs 
of  skepticism  incidental  to  the  progress  of  Christianity.     4.  Christian 
progress  destroys  no  truth.    5.  Common  representation  of  existing  decay 

of  faith  exaggerated 319-344 

CHAPTER  XIV. 
THE  SENSIBILITIES. 

62.  DEFINITION  AND  CLASSIFICATION.    I.  Definition :  motives  and  emotions. 

II.  Classification :  Natural  or  Psychical  and  Rational.     III.  Natural  or 
Psychical  exemplified.     1.  Instincts.   2.  Radical  impulse  to  exertion.    3. 
Appetites  and  desires.  4.  Natural   affections ;  sympathetic  and  repellent. 
IV.  Rational  sensibilities ;  five  classes 345-347 


xviii  CONTENTS. 

2  63.  THE  DESIRE  OF  HAPPINESS  AS  A  MOTIVE. — How  it  may  be  so.  So  far  as  it 

is  a  ruling  motive,  it  is  morbid  and  hurtful 347-348 

64.  FEELING  AS  A  SOURCE  OF  KNOWLEDGE 348 


CHAPTER  XV. 
THE  WILL. 

65.  DEFINITION.— I.  Definition  of  the  will.— II.  The  determinations  of  the  will. 

1.  Determinations  of  two  kinds:  choice  and  volition.  Self-directive  and 
self-exertive.  2.  Distinguished  from  causal  efficiency.  3.  Distinguished 
from  sensibilities.  4.  Distinguished  from  determinations  by  the  intellect. 
III.  Power  constituted  will  by  being  endowed  with  rationality.  Name 
of  the  mind  itself.  Energizing  or  practical  reason.  ......  349-351 

66.  CHOICE  AND  VOLITION.— Determinations  self-directive  and  self-exertive. 

L  The  distinction  is  real.  1.  Recognized  in  consciousness.  2.  Essen- 
tial to  freedom  and  responsibility. — II.  Choice  further  explained.  1.  The 
object  chosen  always  the  object  of  action.  2.  Choice  presupposes  com- 
parison. The  choice  a  simple  indefinable  determination,  known  directly 
in  consciousness.  Error  of  Hazard  and  Bowen  that  the  comparison  is  all. 
Signs  or  manifestations  of  choice  are  volition  and  complacency.  3. 
Choice  is  an  abiding  determination.  4.  Choices  ;  supreme  and  subordi- 
nate.— III.  Volition  further  explained :  Exertive  or  executive.  Resolu- 
tion, purpose,  intention,  immanent  volition. — IV.  Volition  not  a  com- 
plete determination  but  is  the  expression  of  a  choice 351-357 

67.  ETHICAL  APPLICATION. — I.  Object  of  supreme  choice  always  a  person  or 

persons.  Two  spheres:  Object  to  get,  persons  to  trust  and  serve.  In 
the  former  the  good  is  the  ultimate  end.  This  cannot  be  the  supreme 
object:  further  question,  for  whom.  A  person  is  an  end  in  himself  of 
trust  and  service.  The  good  is  nothing  real  except  as  the  good  of  a  per- 
son.— II.  Object  of  right  supreme  choice  is  God  in  the  moral  system. 
Objection  that  the  right  supreme  choice  is  consent  to  reason  The  ob- 
ject of  a  wrong  supreme  choice.  Trust  and  service  of  persons  the  entire 
activity  of  man. — III.  The  love  required  in  the  law  is  a  free  choice. 
Distinguished  from  love  in  popular  use.— IV.  Moral  character  primarily 
in  the  supreme  choice,  and  secondarily,  state  of  the  intellect,  sensibilities, 
habits. — V.  Christian  ethics  contrasted  with  modern  illurninisni.  357-361 

68.  FREEDOM  OF  WILL.— I.  Definition.    1.  Inherent  in  rationality.    2.  Does 

not  imply  consent  of  will  to  reason.  3.  Freedom  as  inherent  in  ration- 
ality different  from  Edwards. — II.  Determination  distinguished  from 
strongest  impulse. — III.  Knowledge  of  free-will  of  the  highest  certainty. 
1.  Appeal  to  consciousness.  2.  Has  the  criteria  of  primitive  knowledge. 
3.  Proof  from  human  history.  4.  Involved  in  being  endowed  with  rea- 
son. 5.  Denial  of  free-will  is  the  denial  of  moral  responsibility.  6.  As 
an  hypothesis  free-will  accounts  for  the  facts.— IV.  Objection  to  free- 
will commonly  founded  on  false  theories  of  knowledge. — V.  Objection 
that  man  is  determined  by  Cosmic  agencies.  1.  Countries  under  similar 
cosmic  agencies  develop  unlike  civilizations.  2.  The  same  country 
in  different  periods  has  unlike  civilizations.  3.  The  true  progress.  361-376 


CONTENTS.  xix 

69.  FREE-WILL  AND  MAN'S  IMPLICATION  IN  NATURE.— I.  In  what  sense  im- 

plicated in  nature.— II.  Also  endowed  with  reason  and  therefore  free. 
III.  Freedom  from  control  of  circumstances  a  matter  of  fact.  1.  May 
resist  natural  impulses  or  concur.  Plato's  chariot.  2.  Under  any  cir- 
cumstances may  do  right.  3.  May  reverse  the  motive.  4.  May  change 
his  circumstances.  5.  May  avail  himself  of  aid  from  men.  6.  May 
avail  himself  of  aid  from  God.  7-  A  limited  power  to  control  the  effects 
of  Cosmic  force  on  the  body.  8.  Controls  the  forces  of  nature  to  effect 
results.  Natural  selection  displaced  by  man's  selection.  Man  the  Lord 
of  nature.  Psalm  via.— IV.  Implication  in  nature  indicates  him  above 
nature.  Nature  not  a  boundary  but  a  sphere.  Senses  open  the  realm 
of  nature  to  perception.  This  the  occasion  of  rational  intuition.  Reveals 
his  reason  to  himself  and  the  universe  to  his  reason.  Similar  thoughts 
as  to  will,  reveals  sphere  of  action  and  power  to  act.  Death  a  liberation. 
Man  the  end  of  nature.  The  spiritual  body  and  the  power  of  mind.  376-386 

70.  DIFFERENT  MEANINGS  OF  FREEDOM.— Moral,  physical,  real  and  formal 

freedom •' 386-389 

71.  THE  INFLUENCE  OF  MOTIVES. — The  question   stated. — I.  Definition  of 

motive. — II.  The  motive  not  the  efficient  cause  of  determination.  The 
will  is  the  cause.  No  causative  act  between  the  will  and  its  determina- 
tion. The  argument  of  Edwards.  Hamilton's  argument  from  antino- 
mies.—III.  The  motive  does  not  determine  the  will.— IV.  The  action  of 
motives  on  the  will  is  influence.  V.  Determinations  always  made  under 
the  influences  of  motives. — VI.  The  common  formulas  of  the  influence 
of  motives  ambiguous  and  worthless. — VII.  The  uniformity  of  human 
action  not  thus  explicable 389-396 

72.  CHARACTER  IN  THE  WILL.— I.  A  choice  constitutes  character.— II.  De- 

terminations influence  subsequent  determinations. — III.  Voluntary  ac- 
tion a  continual  formation  of  character. — IV.  Man  always  free  to  change 
his  supreme  choice. — V.  After  a  character  is  acquired  determinations 
are  not  transition  from  complete  indetermination 396-399 

73.  THE  UNIFORMITY  OF  HUMAN  ACTION. — I.  Uniformity  sufficient  to  be 

the  basis  of  confidence.— II.  Law  of  averages  cannot  explain  it.— III. 
The  uniformity  actually  existing  is  consistent  with  free  will.  .  .  399-402 

74.  SOCIOLOGY  AND  FREE-WILL. — Sociology  may  be  consistent  with  free- 

will.— I.  Sociology  denying  free  will  cannot  be  science. — II.  Sociology 
will  never  reduce  human  acts  to  mechanical  and  chemical  laws. — III. 
Sphere  for  Sociology  compatible  with  free  will 402-407 


CHAPTER  XVI. 
PERSONALITY. 

75.  DEFINITIONS.— I.  Person  and  Impersonal.— II.  Moral  Agent.— III.  Na- 
ture and  the  supernatural.  Man  personal  though  implicated  in  nature. 
Lotze's  explanation.  Duke  of  Argyll's  objection.  Different  uses  of  the 
words  nature  and  supernatural. — IV.  Spirit.  Theological  conception  of 
its  relation  to  space.  May  act  through  material  organisms.  Matter  and 
Spirit  not  antagonistic.  Matter ;  its  old  use  and  its  use  now.  Material- 
ism of  this  day  defined.  The  doctrine  of  spirit 408-414 


XX 


CONTENTS. 


76.  MAN  is  A  PERSON.— Certainty  of  the  knowledge 414 

77.  MAN  IS  SPIRIT.     Conditions  of  possibility  of  materialism. — I.  Spirit  ne- 

cessary to  account  for  facts  of  personality.  1.  Difference  of  properties. 
2.  Accords  with  methods  of  physical  science.  3.  More  evidence  of  Spirit 
than  of  atoms,  etc.  4.  Accords  with  dynamic  tendencies. — II.  Necessary 
to  account  for  the  physical  universe.  It  is  not  mere  mechanism.  Grav- 
itation not  explained  by  persistence  of  force.  Similar  difficulties  in 
cohesion  and  chemical  affinity  and  all  interaction  of  bodies  molar  or 
molecular. — III.  Scientists  recognize  need  of  some  power  above  matter. 
Universe  more  analogous  to  an  organism  than  to  a  machine. — IV.  Ma- 
terialism cannot  account  for  and  explain  the  facts  either  of  matter  and 
force  or  personality.— V.  Conclusion  that  man  is  spirit 414-427 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTIONS  TO  THE  EXISTENCE  OF  PERSONAL 

BEINGS. 

78.  FIRST  MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION;    FROM  SENSATIONALISM.— Subjec- 

tive Materialism. — I.  Inconsistent  with  materialism.  Inconsistent  with 
Spencer's  Agnosticism.  Materialism  inconsistent  with  Spencer's  Agnos- 
ticism. These  theories  commonly  confounded. — II.  Inconsistent  with 
physical  science. — III.  Is  self-contradictory.  Matter  defined  only  by 
relation  to  mind  and  mind  only  by  relation  to  matter.  Issues  in  medi- 
aeval jargon.  Spencer's  transfigured  realism. — IV.  Difficulties  removed 
only  by  existence  of  spirit. — V.  The  source  of  materialism  in  popular 
unscientific  impressions 428-434 

79.  SECOND  MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  THAT  MENTAL  PHENOMENA  ARE 

CORRELATED  WITH  MOLECULAR  ACTION.— I.  The  objection  stated. 
II.  Explanations.  1.  That  mental  action  is  accompanied  by  molecu- 
lar action  and  waste  of  brain  not  denied ;  but  materialism  cannot  ac- 
count for  the  connection.  2.  Not  necessary  to  prove  that  finite  spirit 
ever  exists  and  acts  apart  from  a  material  organ.  3.  Not  necessary  to 
deny  that  vitality  is  correlated  with  motor-force. — III.  The  correlation 
not  sustained  by  physical  science.  1.  Mental  phenomena  cannot  be 
identified  with  motion.  2.  If  energy  is  transformed  into  thought  it  dis- 
appears. 3.  The  energy  in  the  molecular  action  transformed  into  physi- 
cal movements.  A  "closed  circuit"  with  mental  phenomena  excluded. 
4.  This  refutes  materialism. — IV.  Physical  explanations  of  mental 
phenomena  inconceivable.  1.  Registration  of  sensations  in  memory.  2. 
Unity  of  consciousness  and  identity.  3.  The  multitude  of  registrations. 
4.  Explanation  by  registration  transmitted  by  heredity. — V.  Physical 
science  has  no  explanation  of  mental  phenomena.  Dogmatic  material- 
ism impossible. — VI.  The  existence  of  spirit  explains  the  phenomena  > 
and  avoids  the  difficulties.  1.  Physical  science  limited  in  two  directions. 
2.  Existence  of  spirit  transcends  the  limits.  Energizing  Reason.  3.  Ne- 
cessity of  assuming  the  existence  of  personal  spirit.  4.  Elements  of  the 
idea  given  in  the  knowledge  of  self.  5.  Objection  that  we  have  no  ex- 
perience of  disembodied  spirit.  6.  Objection  that  mental  phenomena 
must  be  resolved  into  molecular  motion  in  order  to  be  cognizable  by  science. 
— VII.  Correlation  of  facts  of  personality  with  motion  is  incompatible 
with  the  facts  themselves 434-454 


CONTENTS.  xxi 

80.  THIRD  MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  :  FROM  EVOLUTION.— The  Objection 
stated. — I.  Distinguish  materialistic  evolution  from  scientific. — II.  Evo- 
lution as  a  law  of  nature  not  scientifically  established.  1.  The  law  con- 
ditions all  other  laws.  2.  The  four  subordinate  theories  not  scientifically 
proved.  3.  Laws  of  Evolution  not  scientifically  exact.  4.  Evolutionists 
while  regarding  the  universe  as  mechanism,  substitute  the  idea  of  or- 
ganic growth  in  carrying  out  their  theory. — III.  Scientific  Evolution 
consistent  with  personality  of  man  and  God.  1.  It  does  not  involve  ma- 
terialism. 2.  Not  inconsistent  with  personality  of  men.  3.  Not  incon- 
sistent with  moral  law.  4.  Consistent  with  Theism.— IV.  Scientific 
Evolution  no  help  to  materialism  and  itself  discredited  if  held  as  neces- 
sarily materialistic.  1.  Evolution  factual,  Materialism  metaphysical.  2. 
Evolution  removes  no  difficuiiies  ot  materialism  in  accounting  for  physi- 
cal universe ;  proves  them  irremovable.  3.  No  aid  to  materialism  in 
making  mind  a  function  of  matter.  Leads  to  the  contrary  conclusion. 
4.  Materialistic  evolution  gives  no  basis  of  good  morals.  First:  No  data 
for  constructing  an  ethical  theory.  Secondly:  Only  law  deducible  for 
determining  conduct  is  immoral,  viz :  Might  makes  right.  Thirdly  :  Xo 
basis  for  rights  of  individuals  in  relation  to  the  State.  Fourthly :  No 
practically  effective  motives  to  virtue.  Fifthly :  Immoral  tendency. 
Sixthly :  Contradicts  moral  intuitions.  5.  Issues  in  the  extinction  of  per- 
sonality;  lapsed  intelligence.  6.  Materialistic  evolution  unscientific. — 
V.  Scientific  Evolution  at  every  stage  reveals  a  supernatural  power.  1. 
Implied  in  the  meaning  of  it  as  scientists  use  it.  Incompatible  with 
materialistic  evolution.  2.  If  mind  is  to  act  through  matter,  the  matter 
must  be  prepared  to  be  its  organ.  Analogy  of  generation.  3.  Accords 
•with  a  universal  law  of  the  elaboration  of  matter  in  preparation  for  man- 
ifesting a  higher  power.  The  elaboration  not  yet  completed.  Existence 
after  death.  4.  Planes  or  grades  manifesting  successively  higher  powers. 
First,  manifesting  mechanical  force.  Second,  chemical  force.  Third, 
vital  force.  Fourth,  sentient  life.  Fifth,  personality.  Are  distinct. 
Higher  power  acts  on  next  below ;  not  on  still  lower  grades.  5.  Force  in 
a  lower  grade  does  not  create  force  in  a  higher.  Beginning  of  motion. 
Every  interaction.  Beginning  of  elemental  or  chemical  force.  Begin- 
ning of  life.  Conditioned  on  previous  life.  Beginning  of  sensitivity, 
and  of  human  personality.  Lower  force  held  in  abeyance  by  the  higher. 
6.  Matter  in  the  higher  grades  does  not  originate  but  reveals  the  higher 
power.  7.  Evolution  a  continual  revelation  of  hypermaterial  power. 
Concurrence  of  different  schools  of  thought.  Evolution  incompatible 
with  materialism.  8.  Appearance  of  Personality.  9.  Conclusion. — VI. 
Evolution,  if  true,  demands  a  personal  God.  Evolution  emphasizes  the 
teleological  argument.  1.  Presupposes  always  a  higher  power  revealing 
itself.  2.  In  this  higher  power  the  powers  evolved  exist  potentially.  3. 
The  Absolute  Being  is  a  rational  or  personal  being ;  is  the  Absolute  Rea- 
son. 4.  Finite  beings  have  real  existence  distinct  from  the  Absolute.  5. 
In  what  sense  the  universe  created  by  God.  Evolution  presents  no 
peculiar  objection  to  creation.  Evolution  requires  creation.  6.  God  im- 
manent in  the  universe.  7.  God's  action  in  creating,  sustaining  and 
evolving  is  individuating.  8.  God's  action  the  continuous  realization  in 
the  finite  of  an  ideal  eternal  in  the  Absolute  Reason.  9.  God's  action 
expressing  the  ideal  or  plan  of  Reason  is  progressive.  10.  God's  action 
in  the  universe  uniform  and  continuous  according  to  law.  Objection 
that  theism  supposes  capricious  will  in  nature.  11.  The  Moral  system 


xxii  CONTENTS. 

gives  a  sphere  for  endless  progress  which  is  impossible  to  materialism. 
12.  Objections  by  Spencer  and  others 455-537 

$  81.  FOURTH  MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION,  FROM  ATTRIBUTES  OF  BRUTES.— 
I.  All  the  mental  qualities  of  brutes  are  qualities  of  men. — II.  Man  has 
also  the  attributes  of  personality  which  brutes  have  not  in  any  degree. 
1.  Different  qualities  in  intellect,  sensitivity  and  will.  2.  Brutes  lack 
these  attributes  of  personality.  3.  The  higher  attainments  of  man  im- 
possible to  brutes. — III.  If  any  animals  have  attributes  of  personality  it 
would  prove  only  that  those  animals  are  persons,  not  that  men  are 
brutes,  nor  that  all  animals  are  persons. — IV.  Man  though  implicated 
in  nature,  is  supernatural.  1.  Objection  that  brute  sensitivity  not  corre- 
lated with  motion.  2.  Unscientific  to  affirm  that  life  is  merely  a  mode 
of  motion.  3.  The  difficulties  removed  by  theistic  evolution. — V.  Man 
is  spirit;  the  brute  is  not.  Objection  that  all  brutes,  even  the  infusoria, 
must  have  souls.  Threefold  classification  of  man  as  body,  soul,  spirit 
unnecessary.  Lewes'  objection  that  the  spiritual  hypothesis  unscientific. 
Spencer's  objection  from  babes  and  savages 537-554 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 
THE  TWO  SYSTEMS  OF  NATURE  AND  PERSONALITY. 

82.  A  PERSON'S  KNOWLEDGE  OF  OTHER  PERSONS.— I.  .What  person  or 

spirit  is,  is  known  only  in  consciousness  of  self.  Empty  speculations  as 
to  the  origin  of  the  idea. — II.  Man  has  knowledge  of  personal  beings 
other  than  himself.  1.  The  denial  of  this  involves  agnosticism.  2.  Basis 
for  this  knowledge  in  Kant's  philosophy.  3.  Involved  in  perceptive  in- 
tuition. 4.  When  personality  is  known  in  self  it  can  be  recognized  in 
others.  5.  Mistakes  of  savages  as  to  the  Supernatural  no  objection.  6. 
Objection  from  anthropomorphism 555-559 

83.  THE  Two  SYSTEMS. -Man  knows  himself  in  each 560 

84.  EXISTENCE  OF  THE  PERSONAL  GOD  A  NECESSARY  DATUM  OF  SCIEN- 

TIFIC KNOWLEDGE.— The  key-stone  in  the  arch  of  rational  knowledge. 
— I.  Necessary  to  trustworthiness  of  human  reason. — II.  Necessary  to 
the  community  of  knowledge. — III.  Necessary  to  the  completeness  of 
human  thought.  To  solve  the  ultimate  and  necessary  problem.  To  the 
unity  of  the  system  of  nature.  To  the  unity  of  the  rational  and  moral 
system.  No  antagonism  between  the  two  systems.  Sin  the  only  evil 
and  only  essential  antagonism.  Conflict  not  between  spirit  and  matter. 
The  good  progressively  prevails  over  the  evil.  The  new  birth  of  the 
creation.  ....  .  560-564 


UNIVERSITY 


THE 


PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 


CHAPTER   I. 


INTRODUCTORY. 


§1.    Design  of  the  Book. 

A  CHRISTIAN  man  knows  God  in  his  own  experience ;  all  that  is 
of  highest  worth  to  man  in  life  rests  on  his  experience  of  God's  gracious 
presence  and  power  in  his  own  moral  and  spiritual  development.  In 
the  strength  of  such  knowledge  many  a  Christian  has  lived  a  life  of 
Christ-like  love  or  gone  to  a  martyr's  stake,  who  never  attempted  to 
define  or  defend  the  articles  of  his  belief.  And  the  spontaneous  reli- 
gious beliefs  of  ruder  men  rest  on  what  they  have  felt  and  known  of 
the  presence  and  power  of  the  supernatural  in  and  about  them.  Thus 
the  knowledge  of  God  begins,  like  the  knowledge  of  nature  and  of  man, 
in  experience. 

But  since  man  is  rational  he  cannot  rest  permanently  in  this 
spontaneous  belief.  As  he  advances  in  intelligence  and  intellectual 
development,  he  must  reflect  on  what  he  thus  believes,  must  define  to 
himself  what  it  is,  and  interpret  and  vindicate  it  to  his  reason  as 
reasonable  belief  and  real  knowledge.  This  must  be  done  if  religious 
belief  is  to  commend  itself  to  thinking  persons ;  it  must  be  done  anew 
from  generation  to  generation  if,  in  every  period  of  intellectual  ac- 
tivity and  of  advance  in  knowledge  and  culture,  Christianity  is  to 
retain  its  preeminence  as  the  light  and  inspiration  of  human  life 
and  the  universal  religion  of  mankind.  The  knowledge  of  God,  like 
the  knowledge  of  man  and  nature,  begins  in  experience,  and  is  ascer- 
tained, defined  and  systemized  in  thought.  Even  where  God  tran- 
scends our  knowledge,  we-  at  least  mark  definitely  the  limits  of  the 
known.  In  this  transition  from  spontaneous  to  reflective  knowledge, 
questions  of  two  classes  arise.  First  are  the  questions :  Have  we 

1 


2  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

knowledge  of  God  ?  What  are  the  sources  of  this  knowledge  ?  How 
can  we  vindicate  its  reality  and  validity  against  objections?  Then 
come  questions  of  a  second  class :  Admitting  that  God  exists,  what  do 
we  know  of  him,  and  what  is  the  practical  significance  of  the  reality 
known  of  him  to  us  and  to  mankind  ?  The  answers  to  these  questions 
of  reflective  thought  constitute  Systematic  Theology.  Accordingly 
this  is  naturally  and  conveniently  treated  in  two  parts :  Fundamental 
Theology,  which  answers  the  questions  of  the  first  class;  Doctrinal 
Theology,  which  answers  the  questions  of  the  second  class. 

But  in  answering  these  questions  we  find  underlying  them  funda- 
mental questions  which  must  be  answered  and  fundamental  principles 
which  must  be  ascertained.  If  the  student  begins  with  asking,  Why 
am  I  a  Christian  ?  he  is  forced  back  on  the  question,  Why  am  I  a 
theist?  For  Christianity  presupposes  the  existence  of  God,  and  de- 
clares that  he  has  revealed  himself  in  redemptive  action  coursing 
through  human  history,  and  especially  in  Jesus  the  Christ.  And  when 
he  asks,  Why  am  I  a  theist  ?  he  is  forced  back  on  questions  which 
reach  to  the  profoundest  depths  of  human  thought.  Among  these  are 
questions  as  to  the  reality,  the  processes  and  the  possible  sphere  of 
human  knowledge ;  the  principles  and  laws  of  thought ;  the  capacity 
of  man  to  know  God ;  the  distinction  between  empirical  science,  philo- 
sophy and  theology,  and  their  necessary  harmony;  the  basis  and 
nature  of  moral  distinctions  and  of  moral  law  and  government ;  the 
capacity  of  man  as  a  free  agent  to  be  a  subject  of  moral  government 
and  to  love,  trust  and  obey  God ;  the  distinction  of  the  personal  and 
the  impersonal,  the  natural  and  the  supernatural,  spirit  and  matter ; 
the  real  existence  of  personal  beings  and  the  materialistic  objections 
thereto ;  the  synthesis  of  the  personal  with  the  absolute ;  the  reality  of 
the  two  systems,  the  physical  and  the  moral,  and  their  harmony  and 
unity  in  the  universe  of  God.  These  and  similar  questions  necessarily 
arise  in  the  attempt  to  translate  our  spontaneous,  indeterminate, 
unreasoned  knowledge  of  God  into  knowledge  rationally  defined, 
interpreted  and  vindicated ;  for  God  is  the  absolute  Ground  of  the 
universe,  and  the  rational  setting  forth  of  our  knowledge  of  him  and 
the  vindication  of  it  as  real  knowledge  must  bring  us  down  to  the 
principles  which  are  at  the  foundation  alike  of  all  thought  and  of  all 
things.  Christian  faith  in  God  may  exist  without  answering  or  even 
asking  these  questions.  But  when  skepticism  forces  them  on  the 
thought,  it  is  necessary  to  investigate  and  answer  them  in  order  that 
the  intellect  may  thread  its  way  through  the  labyrinth,  into  wThich  it 
finds  itself  thrust,  of  doubts,  perplexities  and  objections  confused  in 
tortuous  and  mazy  ways,  and  may  come,  with  faith  now  illumined 
through  and  through  with  intelligence,  to  the  presence  and  vision 


INTRODUCTORY.  3 

of  God,  to  an  intelligent  and  restful  conviction  that  the  universe  is 
grounded  in  Absolute  Reason  energizing  in  perfect  wisdom  and  love, 
and  that  this  Energizing  Reason  is  God. 

The  examination  of  the  personality  of  man  is  necessary  also  in 
answering  theological  questions  of  the  second  class  and  setting  forth 
what  we  know  of  God  and  of  his  relations  to  the  universe.  Accord- 
ingly theologians  in  their  system  of  doctrine  have  their  chapters  of 
anthropology  not  less  than  of  theology.  Communion  between  God  and 
man  is  of  the  essence  of  religion.  Therefore  the  knowledge  of  man, 
not  less  than  the  knowledge  of  God,  is  necessary  to  the  right  under- 
standing of  religious  truth.  Misapprehension  of  the  personality  of 
man  and  of  the  rational  principles  involved  in  it  has  always  been  a 
fruitful  source  of  erroneous  theological  doctrine. 

This  volume  is  not  designed  to  present  in  detail  the  evidence  of  the 
existence  of  God ;  it  is  designed  to  examine  the  constitution  of  man  as 
a  personal  being  in  order  to  ascertain  his  capacity  to  know  and  serve 
God,  to  answer  the  philosophical  questions  involved  in  the  controversy 
with  skepticism,  agnosticism  and  materialism,  and  to  set  forth,  clear 
from  misapprehension,  and  vindicate  the  principles  on  which  the  de- 
fence of  theism  must  rest.  It  is  not  intended  to  be  a  treatise  on 
psychology,  ethics  or  metaphysics.  I  have  given  psychological  defini- 
tions and  classifications  so  far  as  they  are  necessary  to  explain  my  use 
of  terms.  Aside  from  this  I  have  confined  myself  to  those  topics,  the 
right  exposition  of  which  is  of  critical  significance  in  deciding  the 
controversies  now  rife  between  Christian  theism  and  unbelief  in  its 
various  forms,  and  in  the  discussion  of  which  I  have  hoped  to  contri- 
bute something  to  the  clear  and  exact  apprehension  and  the  true  and 
convincing  answer  of  the  questions  at  issue. 

1 2.   Necessity  of  this  Investigation. 

In  what  has  been  already  said  we  see  urgent  reasons  for  this  investi- 
gation. Its  necessity  is  further  evident  from  the  following  consid- 
erations. 

I.  The  fundamental  question  of  theology  is,  does  a  personal  God 
exist  ?     Preparatory  to  even  asking  the  question  the  theologian  must 
ascertain  what  personality  is.     But  man  cannot  have  even  the  idea  of 
personality  unless  he  has  first  found  the  elements  of  it  in  his  own 
being.     Therefore  he  cannot  inquire  respecting  the  personality  of  God, 
till,  by  studying  the  constitution  of  man,  he  has  found  out  that  man  is 
a  person,  and  thus  has  ascertained  what  personality  is  and  what  is  the 
distinction  between  persons  and  impersonal  beings. 

II.  The  question  with  the  atheist  is  ultimately  the  question  as  to  the 
reality  of  knowledge.     Atheism,  in  its  usual  forms,  is  founded  on  the 


4  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

denial  of  the  capacity  of  the  human  mind  to  know  God.  It  does  not 
assert  positively,  There  is  no  God ;  but  only  that  man  is  incapable  of 
knowing  that  God  exists. 

Some  atheists  have  indeed  asserted  positively  that  God  does  not  exist. 
This  was  asserted  by  Chaumette  and  Clootz  in  the  first  French  Revolu- 
tion. It  is  not  only  asserted,  but  the  assertion  is  made  the  basis  of  a 
proposed  political  and  social  revolution  and  reorganization,  by  the 
Nihilists  and  by  many  of  the  Communists.  This  assertion,  however, 
involves  the  assumption  that  man  has  capacity  to  know  God,  has  also 
the  true  idea  of  him,  knows  also  all  the  evidence  of  his  existence 
which  the  universe  contains  now  or  ever  has  contained  or  ever  will 
contain,  and  knows  also  that  the  evidence  is  inadequate  and  that  God 
does  not  exist.  This  form  of  atheism  assumes  as  its  basis  the  omni- 
science of  the  atheist ;  for  if  he  does  not  know  everything,  that  which 
he  does  not  know  may  be  God,  or  the  evidence  of  God's  existence 
which  would  convince  the  atheist.  A  negation  involving  such  ab- 
surdity cannot  enter  the  field  of  intelligent  debate.  It  is  the  atheism 
of  ignorance,  prejudice  and  passion. 

Atheism,  which  rests  on  intelligence  sufficiently  to  admit  debate,  can 
go  no  further  than  to  deny  the  capacity  of  man  to  know  God,  to 
declare  that  therefore  the  existence  of  God  is  not  a  legitimate  object  of 
inquiry  or  investigation.  We  are  met  at  the  threshold  and  warned  off 
from  theology  as  inaccessible  to  knowledge  and  shut  against  explora- 
tion. When  we  discuss  a  question  of  history  or  astronomy,  both  parties 
appeal  to  knowledge,  examine  facts,  and  decide  according  to  evidence. 
But  in  discussing  the  existence  of  God,  the  atheist  admits  no  appeal  to 
knowledge  and  to  evidence.  If  God  exists,  no  evidence  can  prove  his 
existence  to  us.  He  is  out  of  all  relation  to  our  faculties ;  and  what- 
ever idea  we  may  form  of  him  cannot  be  the  correct  idea ;  for  any  idea 
formed  by  our  faculties  cannot  be  the  true  idea  of  a  reality  out  of  all 
relation  to  our  faculties. 

Thus  atheism  forces  us  at  once  on  the  investigation  of  the  nature 
and  extent  of  man's  capacity  of  knowledge.  The  question  between 
theism  and  atheism  is  not  the  question  whether  there  is  evidence  that 
God  exists ;  it  is  the  question  whether  the  human  mind  is  competent  to 
know  Him. 

The  theories  of  knowledge,  on  which  atheism,  in  its  different  forms, 
rests  its  denial  that  man  can  know  God,  are  various.  They  are  usu- 
ally theories  denying  the  knowledge  of  God  but  admitting  the  reality 
of  knowledge  in  other  spheres.  Such  are  the  various  forms  of  phe- 
nomenalism ;  the  theories  of  the  relativity  of  knowledge ;  the  physiolo- 
gical psychologies,  which,  crediting  man's  lower  powers  to  the  discredit 
of  the  higher,  regard  the  senses  as  the  only  source  of  knowledge ;  the 


INTRODUCTORY.  5 

denial  of  the  validity  of  rational  intuition  and  of  metaphysics ;  the 
patronizing  recognition  of  religion  as  legitimate  in  the  feelings  and  the 
imagination  but  excluded  from  knowledge.  In  all  these  forms  of 
atheism  the  primary  subject  of  debate  is  not  the  existence  of  God,  but 
the  theory  of  knowledge  on  which  the  denial  of  the  knowledge  of  God 
is  founded. 

I  expect  to  show  that  every  theory  of  knowledge  which  is  the  intel- 
lectual basis  of  atheism  involves  in  its  essence  complete  agnosticism  or 
universal  skepticism.  This  necessary  issue  is  usually  hidden,  often  from 
the  atheist  himself,  in  what  claims  to  be  a  theory  of  knowledge-.  But 
every  theory  of  knowledge  which  affirms  the  impossibility  of  knowing 
God,  will  be  found  on  examination  to  deny  at  some  point  the  trust- 
worthiness of  man's  intellect  in  its  normal  exercise  and  so  to  involve 
complete  agnosticism.  It  will  be  found  to  be  a  theory  which  can  be 
defended  and  justified  only  by  appealing  to  objections  which  equally 
justify  universal  skepticism  or  complete  agnosticism. 

This  fatal  issue  of  all  these  theories  is  easily  kept  out  of  sight. 
Skeptical  objections  which  are  regarded  as  of  great  force  when  urged 
against  theology,  are  often  disregarded  as  frivolous  when  urged  against 
other  departments  of  knowledge  to  which  they  are  equally  pertinent. 
We  are  so  constantly  in  contact  with  common  things  that,  when 
applied  to  them,  the  fine  speculations  of  skepticism  that  we  know  only 
impressions,  and  that  knowledge  is  phenomenal,  or  is  relative,  or  im- 
possible, are  brushed  away  by  our  senses  and  our  common  sense.  But 
God  and  the  realities  of  the  moral  and  spiritual  life  are  less  obtrusive, 
and  common  sense  does  not  react  so  instantaneously  against  the  denial 
of  them ;  therefore  against  these  men  discuss  objections  as  formidable, 
which  when  applied  with  equal  pertinence  to  common  affairs  or  to 
physical  sciences  they  disregard  as  quibbles. 

The  question  with  the  atheist,  therefore,  as  I  expect  to  show,  is 
ultimately  the  question  as  to  the  possibility  of  any  knowledge  what- 
ever. If  man  cannot  know  God,  he  cannot  knowr  anything.  Con- 
versely, the  existence  of  God  is  essential  to  the  possibility  of  rational 
knowledge. 

III.  Some  Christian  theologians  unwittingly  take  false  aud  indefen- 
sible positions.  They  adopt  theories  of  knowledge  logically  involving 
complete  agnosticism ;  or  they  misapprehend  what  personality  is ;  or 
they  give  definitions  logically  involving  the  denial  of  man's  freedom,  or 
of  his  constitutional  religiousness,  or  even  of  the  distinctive  elements  of 
reason,  and  thus  accept-  the  errors  on  which  atheism  rests.  Many 
have  attempted  to  construct  theology  in  accordance  with  Locke's 
theory  of  knowledge  and  so  have  labored  to  find  out  God  by  empirical 
methods.  An  evangelical  clergyman  has  recently  published  an  article 


6  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

declaring  that  in  metaphysics  "  theory  is  regarded  as  its  own  verifica- 
tion," that  "  the  metaphysical  method  was  the  dream  of  the  scholastic," 
that  if  any  theological  doctrines  "are  inseparably  bound  up  with 
metaphysics  "  they  must  be  abandoned,  that  theology  must  "  begin  to 
adjust  itself  to  the  new  conditions  and  transfer  its  doctrines  to  the  new 
ground,"  and  that  "  the  new  ground "  is  "  the  Positivism  of  Comte." 
And  so  we  find  clergymen  ignorantly  joining  with  the  skeptic  and 
ridiculing  metaphysics,  wrhich  investigates  the  first  principles  of  reason 
and  the  universal  laws  of  thought,  as  a  mediaeval  jargon  of  words. 
Some,  at  the  opposite  extreme,  have  supposed  the  knowledge  of  uni- 
versals  to  precede  the  knowledge  of  particulars  and  have  attempted  to 
develop  all  truth  by  the  a  priori  method  and  thus  have  plunged  into 
idealism  and  pantheism.  Others  have  been  so  intent  on  the  analysis  of 
personality  in  man  and  in  God,  that  they  have  crowded  the  unity  of 
the  person  into  the  back-ground  and  have  scarcely  remembered  that 
reason  is  the  person  considered  as  illuminated  with  reason,  and  will  is 
the  person  considered  as  determining  and  energizing,  and  sensibility 
the  person  considered  as  the  subject  of  motives  and  emotions ;  that  will 
is  reason  determining  and  energizing,  and  reason  is  will  rational. 
They  push  their  analysis  to  disjunction.  They  are  like  the  daughters 
of  Pelias,  who  cut  their  father  in  pieces,  but  waited  in  vain  to  see  him 
rise  in  youth  and  beauty  from  the  witch's  caldron.  Hence  comes  a 
theology  jejune,  arid,  and  in  conflict  writh  itself. 

Closely  allied  to  this  is  the  habit  of  abstract  thinking  about  general 
notions  and  propositions  expressed  in  words.  Abstract  thinking  is 
always  indispensable.  But  in  proportion  as  it  becomes  dominant  and 
exclusive  it  shuts  out  realistic  thinking  about  concrete  realities ;  and 
without  the  latter,  scientific  knowledge  is  impossible  and  the  thinking 
issues  only  in  words.  Theologians  have  no  more  escaped  this  tendency 
than  thinkers  in  other  departments  of  knowledge.  Since  persons  are 
concrete  realities  not  less  than  things,  concrete,  realistic  thinking  is  as 
indispensable  in  theology  as  in  every  other  sphere  of  knowledge.  It  is 
commonly  said  that  theology  is  exclusively  occupied  with  abstractions ; 
but  this  is  no  more  true  of  theology  than  it  is  of  astronomy,  chemistry 
or  sociology.  So  far  as  theologians  have  allowed  abstract  thinking  to  ex- 
clude the  realistic,  they  have  fallen  into  false  thinking  and  inextricable 
embarrassments,  and  laid  themselves  open  to  unanswerable  objections. 
The  result  has  sometimes  been  that  the  very  concepts,  definitions, 
propositions  and  systems  intended  to  reveal  God  have  become  a  veil 
that  hides  him ;  formulas  of  doctrine  have  'filled  the  eye  instead  of 
God  active  in  human  hearts  and  human  history  redeeming  man  from 
sin,  the  letter  of  a  scripture  instead  of  the  living  Word  and  the  ever- 
present  Spirit  of  God. 


INTRODUCTORY.  7 

There  are  also  theologians  who  assert  that  religion  is  founded  only 
in  the  feelings  and  that  it  is  only  by  a  faith-faculty,  distinct  from  the 
reason  and  rooted  hi  the  feelings,  that  man  comes  into  communication 
with  God.  They  overlook  the  fact  that  reflective  thought  in  every 
sphere  of  knowledge  presupposes  primitive,  spontaneous,  unelaborated 
and  unproved  beliefs ;  that  it  presupposes  intuitions,  involved,  in  the 
nebulousness  of  the  primitive  consciousness,  which  assert  their  regu- 
lative power  only  on  occasion  in  experience  and  are  recognized  only 
as  the  mind  reflects  on  its  own  action.  They  overlook  the  fact 
that,  therefore,  there  is  the  same  reason  for  a  faith-faculty  in  every 
science  as  in  theology.  What  is  demanded  of  the  theologian  is  that  he 
show  the  synthesis  of  reason  and  faith ;  that  he  show  that  the  primitive 
belief  in  the  supernatural  and  in  a  divinity  is  a  reasonable  belief,  is 
itself  the  manifestation  of  the  reason,  is  the  soul's  consciousness  of  God 
moving  in  the  darkness  and  formlessness  of  its  own  primitive  feeling 
and  intelligence.  But  these  theologians  declare  a  sharp  antithesis  and 
separation  of  reason  and  faith,  as  well  as  of  reason  and  the  witness  of 
the  Spirit  of  God  in  the  heart  of  man.  In  fact  recent  theology  almost 
overlooks  the  witness  of  the  Spirit  which  was  prominent  and  dominant 
in  the  thinking  of  Calvin  and  the  reformers.  Thus  these  theologians 
concede  the  whole  ground  to  the  agnostic,  who  admits  that  religion  is  a 
matter  of  feeling  and  that  the  imagination  in  each  generation  may 
shape  an  object  for  it,  but  denies  that  God  or  any  object  of  religious 
feeling  can  be  an  object  of  knowledge.  There  are  also  theologians  who 
do  not  recognize  God  as  the  Supreme  Reason,  but  exalt  Will  to 
supremacy,  teaching  that  the  distinction  of  right  and  wrong  results 
from  a  fiat  of  God's  will,  and  thus  agree  with  the  atheist  that  theism 
makes  a  capricious  will  supreme,  and  deprive  themselves  of  all  answer 
to  the  objection  thaj;  the  order  and  law  of  nature  prove  the  absence  of 
will.  Others  teach  that  the  principles  and  laws  of  reason  are  eternal 
and  independent  of  God,  and  thus  accept  the  atheistic  position  that  the 
ultimate  ground  of  the  universe  is  in  the  impersonal  or,  as  Hartmann 
calls  it,  "  the  Unconscious,"  and  leave  no  place  for  God  and  no  reason 
for  His  existence. 

It  is  evident,  for  all  these  reasons,  that  the  study  of  theology  must 
begin  with  investigating  the  reality,  rise,  conditions  and  limitations  of 
human  knowledge,  defining  what  constitutes  personality,  and  setting 
forth  the  principles  of  reason  on  which  theism  rests.  And  of  the  same 
purport  are  the  words  of  Ulrici :  "  Whoever  undertakes  to  discuss  the 
question  of  the  existence  and  essence  of  God,  must  found  his  investiga- 
tion on  a  definite  and  determinate  theory  of  knowledge.  In  reference 
to  the  old  doubt  whether  metaphysics  is  not  all  an  illusion,  he  must 
ascertain  whether  and  how  far  metaphysical  inquiries  are  justified 


8  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

scientifically  in  accordance  with  the  ultimate  grounds  of  being  and 
events."  * 

IV.  In  pursuing  this  investigation  we  shall  find  that  true  meta- 
physics investigates  and  declares  ideas  and  principles  on  which  all 
science  depends,  and  reaches  results  the  reality  of  which  cannot  be  im- 
pugned without  disintegrating  the  results  of  all  scientific  thought. 
Empirical  science  must  deal  with  metaphysical  ideas  and  assume  met- 
aphysical principles  as  really  as  do  mathematics,  logic,  philosophy  and 
theology.  The  physical  science  of  to-day  rests  on  metaphysical  ideas 
and  principles,  and  is  largely  occupied  with  the  discussion  of  meta- 
physical and  theological  questions.  The  complete  positivism  of  Comte 
has  proved  itself  inadequate  to  the  needs  of  scientific  thought  and  has 
been  renounced. 

We  shall  also  find  that  the  true  theory  of  knowledge,  while  trans- 
cending the  theory  of  Locke  long  dominant  in  English  philosophy  and 
theology,  does  not  issue  in  mysticism,  idealism  or  pantheism.  It  re- 
cognizes the  dependence  of  all  scientific  knowledge  on  the  observation 
of  facts  either  by  sense-perception  or  self-consciousness,  as  wrell  as  on 
the  first  principles  of.  reason.  It  teaches  that  the  principles  of  reason 
assert  themselves  in  consciousness  only  on  occasion  in  experience,  and 
have  no  significance  as  knowledge,  except  as  they  are  principles  true  of 
observed  reality  and  making  a  scientific  knowledge  of  it  possible. 
Philosophy  and  theology  depend  on  observed  facts  as  really  as  em- 
pirical science ;  and  empirical  science  depends  on  rational  ideas  and 
principles  as  really  as  philosophy  and  theology. 

We  shall  also  find  that  the  true  idea  of  personality  is  consistent  with 
the  true  idea  of  absolute  being ;  that  man  is  "  in  the  image  of  God ; " 
and  that  this  truth,  announced  in  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  and 
fundamental  in  revelation  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  the  Chris- 
tian scriptures,  is  also  fundamental  in  philosophy  and  in  empirical 
science.  Without  it  no  science  is  possible.  For  if  man  finds  not  in 
himself  the  image  of  that  Energizing  Reason  which  is  at  the  basis  of 
the  universe  and  gives  it  its  unity  under  law  and  in  systematic  order, 
the  discovery  and  declaration  of  which  constitute  science,  then  he  does 
not  find  it  anywhere.  But  if  unreason  and  not  Reason  is  at  the  basis 
of  the  universe,  then  science  is  impossible,  and  nothing  is  left  but  a 
fragmentary  observation  of  what  appears  to  happen,  with  total  ignor- 
ance of  what  lies  beyond  our  senses  in  the  past,  or  in  the  future,  or  at 
the  present  moment  in  the  distances  of  space.  Hence  we  truly  say 
that  the  consciousness  of  God  lies  in  the  background  of  man's  con- 
sciousness of  himself;  that  the  true  knowledge  of  himself  involves  the 
knowledge  of  God.  As  the  late  Professor  T.  H.  Green,  of  Oxford,  ex- 
*  Gott  und  die  Natur,  s.  7. 


INTRODUCTORY.  9 

presses  it,  "  knew  yourself  as  you  truly  are,  and  you  will  know  the 
truth  of  God,  freedom  and  immortality." 

And  we  shall  reach  the  conclusion  that  the  reality  of  scientific 
knowledge  depends  ultimately  on  the  reality  of  the  existence  of  God 
as  the  Absolute  Reason  energizing  in  the  universe,  and  the  primary 
ground  of  all  that  is  ;  that  the  knowledge  of  God  is  not  merely  a  ques- 
tionable belief  to  be  remanded  to  the  feelings  and  the  imagination 
because  it  cannot  be  vindicated  to  the  reason ;  but  that  the  existence 
of  Reason,  universal,  unconditioned  and  supreme,  the  same  every- 
where and  always,  never  in  contradiction  to  the  ultimate  principles 
regulative  of  all  human  thought,  the  ultimate  ground  of  the  universe 
and  ever  energizing  in  it,  is  essential  to  all  scientific  knowledge,  the 
key-stone  of  the  arch  of  all  rational  thought ;  and  that  ultimately  the 
question  with  the  atheist  is  not  whether  man  can  know  God  but 
whether  he  can  know  anything  rationally  and  scientifically. 

We  thus  reach  the  synthesis  of  faith  and  reason.  In  our  spontane- 
ous religiousness  the  whole  man,  intellect,  sensibility  and  will,  responds 
to  the  contact  of  the  supernatural  and  the  divine.  In  reflective 
thought  the  intellectual  is  distinguished  from  the  emotional,  the  motive 
and  the  voluntary.  We  find  that  we  know,  not  merely  what  we  have 
subjectively  experienced,  but  also  that  what  we  have  experienced  rests 
on  truths  and  laws  which  are  not  subjective  and  peculiar  to  our  experi- 
ence, but  are  universal  truths  regulative  of  all  thought  and  laws  to  all 
action ;  and  thus  that  our  faith  is  veritable  knowledge  and  itself  the 
utterance  of  reason.  Even  the  primitive  religiousness  of  savage  men 
is  an  utterance  of  reason  though  not  recognized  as  such,  and  though 
distorted  by  ignorance,  and  false  judgments  and  fear.  The  richer 
experience  of  the  Christian  is  a  consciousness  of  God  manifesting  itself 
in  the  spiritual  life,  transcending,  illuminating  and  enriching  the  most 
advanced  knowledge,  culture  and  civilization.  This  also  is  the  utter- 
ance of  reason,  though  it  may  be  still  unrecognized  as  such.  It  is  only 
because  man  is  endowed  with  reason  that  he  is  susceptible  of  religion 
and  conscious  of  the  presence  and  influence  of  God. 

The  knowledge  that  the  thoughts  set  forth  in  this  volume  have 
already  been  helpful  to  some,  the  hope  that  they  will  throw  light  into 
some  dark  places,  will  make  some  difficult  subjects  more  intelligible  by 
presenting  them  from  a  new  point  of  view,  will  remove  some  misappre- 
hensions as  to  what  Christian  theism  truly  is,  and  so  may  help  some 
still  mazed  in  the  labyrinth  of  doubt,  are  the  motives  for  publishing 
this  book :  "  Non  ignarus  mali,  miseris  succurrere  disco." 


CHAPTER    II. 
KNOWLEDGE    AND    AGNOSTICISM 


I  3.    What  Knowledge  is. 

Knowledge  implies  a  subject  knowing  and  a  reality  known  (objec- 
tive or  subjective).  The  knowledge  is  the  relation  between  them. 
Both  a  subject  knowing  and  a  reality  known  are  essential  to  know- 
ledge ;  if  either  is  wanting,  knowledge  is  impossible.  This  is  the  first 
law  of  thought. 

Knowledge  is  always  the  knowledge  of  reality.  This  is  of  its 
essence ;  if  it  is  not  the  knowledge  of  reality,  it  is  not  knowledge. 
The  validity  or  reality  of  knowledge  is  essential  in  the  idea  of  know- 
ledge. Knowledge  is  the  intellectual  equivalent  of  some  reality. 

The  act  of  the  mind  in  knowing  is  a  primitive  act  incapable  of 
analytical  definition.  It  cannot  be  explained  any  more  than  light  can 
be  illuminated.  It  is  the  inexplicable  act  by  which  the  mind  takes  up 
a  reality  into  itself  in  an  intuition,  an  apprehension,  an  idea,  in  some 
intellectual  equivalent,  and  knows  it.  We  can  declare  the  conditions, 
physiological  or  others,  under  which  knowledge  arises ;  we  can  analyze 
the  processes  by  which  the  mind  attains  it.  But  the  mental  act  itself 
by  which  an  object,  external  and  unknown,  suddenly  stands  clear  and 
definite  wdthin  the  intelligence,  remains  a  mystery.  And  all  physiolo- 
gical facts  as  to,  its  connection  with  molecular  action  of  the  brain  leave 
it  as  mysterious  as  ever. 

What  knowledge  is,  is  known  in  the  act  of  knowing  and  known  only 
in  the  act  of  knowing.  That  it  is  knowledge  is  also  known  in  the  act 
of  knowing.  My  certainty  of  a  reality  is  simply  my  consciousness  of 
knowing,  which,  whether  attended  to  or  not,  is  essential  in  every  act  of 
knowledge.  "I  know  that  I  know"  means  no  more  than  "I  know." 
Otherwise  every  act  of  knowledge  would  be  conditioned  on  an  act 
preceding  and  knowledge  would  fail  in  a  vain  regression  along  an 
infinite  series. 

\  4.    Agnosticism. 

Agnosticism  is  the  doctrine  that  the  human  intellect  in  its  normal 
exercise  is  untrustworthy  and  incompetent  to  attain  knowledge;  and 
10 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  AGNOSTICISM.  H 

that  therefore  knowledge  is  impossible  to  man.  The  doctrine  has  also 
been  known  in  philosophy  by  the  names  Pyrrhonism,  Nihilism  and 
Universal  Skepticism. 

It  is  not  the  denial  of  the  possibility  of  knowledge  in  a  particular 
case  for  lack  of  evidence,  or  on  account  of  the  limitation  of  the  human 
mind.  In  affirming  that  man's  knowledge  is  real  we  do  not  affirm  that 
it  is  omniscience.  Reality  may  exist  known  to  minds  of  a  superior 
order,  but  entirely  beyond  the  range  of  the  human  mind  in  its  present 
development.  It  is  one  important  aim  of  philosophy  to  determine  the 
necessary  limits  of  human  knowledge  and  so  to  prevent  the  waste  of 
intellect  in  vain  attempts  to  know  the  unknowable. 

Agnosticism  is  a  denial  that  the  human  intellect  is  trustworthy ;  it  is 
the  consequent  denial  that  man  is  competent  to  attain  knowledge 
within  the  range  of  his  faculties  and  in  the  normal  exercise  of  all  his 
powers.  He  may  have  necessary  beliefs  in  accordance  with  which  he 
must  think ;  but  he  can  never  have  confidence  that  his  necessary  belief 
is  trustworthy  or  that  by  any  intuition  or  any  reasoning  he  attains 
knowledge  of  reality. 

It  follows  that  a  partial  agnosticism  necessarily  involves  complete 
agnosticism,  and  is  therefore  self-contradictory  and  untenable.  If  at 
one  point  the  intellect  is  found  to  be  false  and  untrustworthy,  that  is 
the  discovery  at  that  point  of  a  falsity  and  untrustworthiness  which 
discredit  the  intellect  at  every  point  and  invalidate  all  that  is  called 
knowledge.  For  example,  if  the  intellect  in  the  normal  exercise  of  its 
powers  persistently  and  necessarily  believes  a  certain  self-evident  prin- 
ciple or  axiom,  and  yet  wTith  equal  persistence  and  necessity  believes 
another  self-evident  principle  contradictory  to  the  first,  it  is  exposed  as 
false  and  self-contradictory  and  discredited  in  all  its  action.  The 
agnostic  may  assert  a  partial  agnosticism  while  admitting  the  reality  of 
knowledge  in  other  particulars;  but  it  is  only  because  he  has  not 
thought  far  enough  to  see  the  reach  of  his  denial.  The  partial  necessi- 
tates the  complete  agnosticism. 

1  5.    The  Reality  of  Knowledge. 

This  topic  is  sometimes  designated  "  The  Validity  of  Knowledge," 
and  the  discussion  is  of  the  question  "Is  Knowledge  Valid?"  But 
validity  is  of  the  essence  of  knowledge ;  invalid  knowledge  is  no  know- 
ledge. The  question,  therefore,  resolves  itself  into  this:  "Is  know- 
ledge real?  Does  man  know  anything?"  This  form  of  statement 
clears  away  irrelevant  matter  and  holds  attention  to  the  precise  point 
in  question. 

I.  The  reality  of  knowledge  is  a  primitive  datum  of  consciousness 


12  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

underlying  and  conditioning  all  human  experience  and  essential  in  all 
human  intelligence. 

1.  The  reality  of  man's  knowledge  of  himself  and  his  environment 
is  a  primitive  datum  of  consciousness.  This  is  implied  in  the  first  law 
or  primordial  postulate  of  thought :  knowledge  implies  a  subject  know- 
ing and  an  object  known,  and  is  the  relation  between  them.  When  I 
say  knowledge  is  real,  I  simply  formulate  in  thought  the  primitive 
consciousness,  "  I  know."  But  this  primitive  consciousness,  "  I  know," 
declares  alike,  "  It  is  I  who  know,"  and  "  I  know  something."  Thus 
the  primitive  datum  of  consciousness  that  knowledge  is  real  involves, 
as  of  the  essence  of  knowledge,  the  reality  of  the  Ego  or  subject 
knowing,  and  the  reality  of  the  object  known ;  for  if  either  is  unreal 
the  knowledge  does  not  exist ;  and  thus  it  involves  the  reality  of  the 
knowledge  in  its  essential  significance.  In  every  act  of  knowledge, 
man's"  knowledge  of  himself  as  knowing  is  an  essential  element,  and 
without  this  there  can  ba  no  knowledge.  Thus  his  whole  conscious 
activity  in  experience  is  a  continuous  revelation  of  the  man  to  himself. 
It  is  the  same  with  the  object  known.  In  every  moment  of  conscious- 
ness man  finds  himself  knowing  something  that  is  not  himself.  The 
existence  of  an  outward  object  is  a  datum  in  all  his  consciousness ;  and 
his  whole  conscious  experience  is  a  continuous  revelation  to  him  of  the 
outward  reality ;  and  if  this  is  not  real  all  knowledge  vanishes.  H. 
Spencer  says,  "  The  co-existence  of  the  subject  and  object  is  a  deliver- 
ance of  consciousness  which,  taking  precedence  of  all  analytic  exami- 
nation, is  a  truth  transcending  all  others  in  certainty."  * 

By  the  testimony,  the  words  and  the  works  of  other  men  we  know 
that  human  knowledge  is  always  in  like  manner  the  knowledge  of  the 
subject  knowing  and  an  object  known.  I  may  say  that  the  entire 
experience  of  .mankind  is  the  continuous  revelation  of  these  realities 
to  the  human  consciousness,  and  that  all  human  experience  is  condi- 
tioned on  their  real  existence.  Man  lives  in  their  presence  and  in 
every  act  of  intelligence  sees  their  reality.  If,  therefore,  the  primordial 
postulate  on  which  human  knowledge  rests  is  false,  all  human  know- 
ledge vanishes  away. 

Thus  it  appears  that  the  reality  of  knowledge  is  a  primitive  datum 
of  consciousness  underlying  and  conditioning  all  human  experience 
and  essential  in  all  intelligence. 

But,  it  will  be  said,  this  is  not  a  demonstration  of  the  reality  of 
knowledge.  The  assertion  is  true.  Knowledge  cannot  originate  in 
reasoning,  for  reasoning  presupposes  knowledge.  If  we  must  prove 
everything  we  cannot  prove  or  know  anything.  For  the  same  reason 

*  Psychology,  Vol.  i.  p.  209. 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  AGNOSTICISM.  13 

we  cannot  prove  the  reality  of  knowledge  by  reasoning.  We  can 
reason  to  what  is  unknown  only  from  what  is  known.  We  cannot 
dive  beneath  all  that  is  known  and  in  the  vacuum  of  total  ignoranc£ 
prove  the  reality  of  knowledge  itself.  We  can  reason  only  by  the  use 
of  our  own  intellectual  faculties.  We  cannot  transcend  these  facul- 
ties to  prove  that  they  themselves  are  trustworthy.  If  one  denies  the 
reality  of  knowledge  no  proof  can  refute  the  denial.  Every  reason 
urged  in  proof  of  the  reality  of  knowledge  assumes  that  reality  and 
derives  all  its  force  as  an  argument  from  the  assumption.  Every 
reason  urged  to  prove  that  our  intellectual  faculties  are  trustworthy, 
can  be  a  reason  only  because  those  faculties  are  trustworthy.  It  is 
therefore  illegitimate  and  useless  to  attempt  to  prove  the  reality  of 
knowledge  or  the  trustworthiness  of  our  intellectual  powers.  So  far  as 
this  question  is  concerned,  we  do  well  to  say  with  Goethe,  "  I  have 
never  thought  about  thinking."  The  speculation  which  entangles  itself 
in  this  fruitless  discussion  merits  the  mockery  of  Mephistopheles  in 
Faust :  "  I  tell  thee,  a  fellow  who  speculates  is  like  a  beast  on  a  dry 
heath  driven  round  and  round  by  an  evil  spirit,  while  all  about  him  lie 
the  beautiful  green  meadows."  * 

Nor  does  it  discredit  the  reality  of  knowledge  that  its  evidence  is  not 
a  demonstration.  It  is  more  than  a  demonstration ;  it  is  the  very  es- 
sence of  knowledge  itself;  it  is  the  primitive  datum  which  underlies 
every  demonstration  and  makes  it  possible.  Man  lives  in  the  light  of 
the  knowledge  of  himself  and  of  the  world,  and  all  his  experience  is 
the  continual  illumination  of  these  realities. 

Nor  does  it  discredit  the  reality  of  knowledge  that  it  is  subjective, 
and  that  the  mind  itself  contributes  an  element  in  the  knowledge.  If 
an  intelligent  being  exists,  he  must  be  constituted  with  capacity  of 
knowing ;  and  when  he  reflects  on  himself,  he  must  find  in  himself 
that  original  capacity,  and  the  act  of  knowing  must  be  the  warrant 
and  evidence  of  the  power  of  knowing.  No  outward  influence  on  a 
stick  or  stone  can  make  it  know,  because  it  is  not  constituted  with  a 
capacity  of  knowing.  It  can  be  no  objection  to  the  reality  of  know- 
ledge that  knowledge  is  the  act  of  a  being  constituted  with  the  capacity 
of  knowing  and  that  it  is  by  virtue  of  this  constitution  that  the 
being  knows.  When  the  subjectivity  of  knowledge  is  urged  against 
its  reality,  the  absurd  objection  is  flatly  propounded  that  knowledge  is 
impossible  if  there  is  an  intelligent  being  who  knows. 

The  primordial  postulate  is  not  from  the  beginning  formulated  in 

*"  Ich  sag'  es  dir ;  ein  Kerl  der  speculirt, 

1st  wie  ein  Thier,  auf  diirrer  Heide 
Von  einem  bosen  Geist  im  Kreis  gefiihrt, 
Und  rings  umher  liegt  schone  grime  Weide." 


14  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

the  words,  "  knowledge  is  real,"  or  "  our  intellectual  faculties  are  trust- 
worthy." It  exists,  rather,  in  every  act  of  knowledge,  as  the  man's 
\menunciated  consciousness  of  himself  as  knowing,  of  an  object  known, 
and  of  the  knowledge.  It  is  a  waste  of  intellect  to  carry  the  question 
through  metaphysical  discussion.  This  postulate  which  underlies  all 
human  experience,  conditions  all  human  knowledge,  and  is  the  primi- 
tive datum  of  all  consciousness,  admits  of  no  debate.  Knowledge 
begins  with  knowing ;  it  reveals  itself  self-evident,  as  light  reveals  itself 
by  shining.  It  originates  as  knowledge,  the  perpetual  miracle  of 
Minerva  springing  full-armed  from  the  brain  of  Jupiter. 

2.  The  reality  of  man's  knowledge  of  the  first  principles  which  are 
regulative  of  all  thought  is  a  primitive  datum  of  consciousness.  Man 
finds  himself  unable  to  think  in  contradiction  of  them.  They  over- 
arch and  encompass  his  thinking  like  a  luminous  firmament,  which 
enlightens  but  cannot  be  transcended  or  escaped.  It  is  the  knowledge 
of  these  principles  underlying  and  conditioning  all  thinking,  which 
makes  it  possible  from  any  process  of  thought  to  conclude  by  inference 
in  knowledge.  Thus  in  the  experience  of  life  all  thinking  is  a  con- 
tinuous revelation  of  these  truths  and  of  the  reality  of  our  knowledge 
of  them.  In  a  similar  manner  we  come  to  the  knowledge  of  truths 
which  are  obligatory  on  us  as  laws  to  the  will. 

•  3.  I  expect  also  to  show,  what  I  will  merely  indicate  now,  that  the 
reality  of  our  knowledge  of  God  is  a  primitive  datum  of  consciousness. 
Man  being  rational  is  so  constituted  that  in  the  presence  of  God,  and 
of  his  various  manifestations  of  himself,  he  will  know  him ;  and  he 
will  know  that  he  knows  God  in  the  act  of  knowing  him.  In  thinking 
of  himself  and  the  beings  about  him,  he  comes  in  view  of  the  absolute 
being.  In  knowing  the  universal  principles  and  laws  of  reason  wrhich 
are  regulative  of  all  human  thinking  and  doing,  he  comes  to  the  know- 
ledge of  absolute  Reason  in  which  they  are  eternal  in  the  fullness  of 
wisdom  and  love.  The  development  of  man's  consciousness  of  himself 
in  his  relation  to  the  world,  is  the  development  of  his  consciousness  of 
God.  As  in  the  experience  of  life,  the  unfolding  consciousness  of  man 
is  a  continuous  revealing  to  him  of  himself  and  of  the  outward  objects 
of  knowledge,  so  also  it  is  a  continuous  revelation  to  him  of  God.  The 
revelation  is  real  to  all ;  its  right  progress  presupposes  the .  normal 
development  of  man ;  its  completeness,  Tightness  and  harmony  will  be 
proportioned  to  the  completeness,  Tightness  and  harmony  of  the  de- 
velopment of  the  man. 

4.  The  realities  which  I  have  considered  are  the  elements  of  the  three 
objects  of  all  human  thought  and  knowledge,  the  Ego  or  person,  the 
World,  and  God.  These  are  not  mere  ideas  spun  and  woven  from  the 
processes  of  our  own  minds.  They  do  not  exisj,  because  we  know  them  ; 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  AGNOSTICISM.  15 

we  know  them  because  they  exist.  I  exist;  therefore,  being  constituted 
capable  of  self-consciousness,  I  know  myself  in  my  own  thinking  and 
doing,  and  therein  know  personal  being.  The  world  exists ;  therefore, 
being  constituted  capable  of  perceiving  outward  objects,  I  know  them 
when  they  are  in  my  presence.  God  exists ;  therefore,  being  consti- 
tuted capable  of  knowing  God,  I  know  him  in  His  various  mani- 
festations. 

5.  It  is  sometimes  claimed  that  real  knowledge  is  that  alone  which 
is  founded  on  experience.  But  the  reality  of  knowledge,  which  is  the 
condition  of  the  possibility  of  experience,  cannot  be  founded  on  ex- 
perience. We  may  truly  say,  however,  that  the  entire  development  of 
consciousness  in  the  experience  of  human  life  is  the  continuous  revela- 
tion of  the  Ego,  the  World  and  God.  Kant  admits  that  in  our  moral 
convictions  we  have  content  in  consciousness  for  the  idea  of  God 
already  known  as  a  necessary  idea  of  Reason.  God  also  reveals  him- 
self in  the  knowledge  of  universal  principles  and  in  all  spiritual  motives 
and  emotions ;  for  these  bring  us  face  to  face  with  the  absolute  Reason 
in  the  fullness  of  its  power,  love  and  wisdom.  In  this  sense  we  may 
say  that  we  know  the  Ego,  the  world  and  God  in  experience. 

It  is  commonly  said  and  widely  accepted  as  unquestionable,  that 
physical  science,  being  founded  on  observation  and  induction,  is  certain 
knowledge;  but  that  theological  belief  is  only  a  faith  which  never 
becomes  real  knowledge.  But  physical  science  and  religious  know- 
ledge are,  as  knowledge,  the  same  in  kind,  differing  only  in  their 
objects.  The  observation  and  experience  on  which  physical  science 
rests  are  self-evident,  unproved  and  unprovable  knowledge.  The  prin- 
ciples on  which  all  the  inductions  and  deductions  of  physical  science 
rest  are  self-evident,  unproved  and  improvable  knowledge ;  such  are  the 
principle  that  every  beginning  or  change  of  existence  has  a  cause,  the 
principle  of  the  uniformity  of  nature  that  the  same  complex  of  causes 
always  produces  the  same  effect,  and  the  axioms  of  mathematics.  And 
its  verifications  also  are  simply  self-evident,  unproved  and  unprovable 
knowledge  by  cumulative  observation  and  experience,  by  persistence  in 
which  in  the  face  of  conscious  fallibility  and  many  mistakes,  it  attains 
what  it  rightly  claims  is  real  and  indisputable  knowledge.  And  this 
scientists  call  the  scientific  method;  and  because  this  knowledge  has 
been  attained  in  this  method,  they  hold  it  for  true  in  the  face  of 
unanswered  objections  and  the  utter  inconceivableness  of  many  of  its 
conclusions;  receiving  it  with  all  its  inexplicable  difficulties,  as  a 
learned  professor  of  natural  science  has  said,  "  without  a  wink."  But 
the  process  of  attaining  theological  knowledge  is  just  the  same.  It 
rests  on  the  trustworthiness  of  the  self-evident  and  unproved  primitive 
knowledge  of  observed  facts  and  universal  principles,  just  as  physical 


16  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

science  does.  It  rests  on  the  experience  and  observation  of  mental 
and  spiritual  phenomena  as  indisputable  as  the  phenomena  of  sense, 
and  essential  and  dominant  factors  in  the  whole  history  of  man; 
phenomena  which  physical  science  confessedly  fails  to  account  for,  and 
which  it  therefore  most  unscientifically  ignores  as  beyond  the  pale  of 
science.  It  also  proceeds  in  its  own  sphere  to  verify  its  conclusions  by 
cumulative  observation  and  experience,  and  in  the  face  of  conscious 
fallibility  and  many  mistakes  attains  to  real  knowledge.  And  it 
rightly  holds  it  as  real  knowledge  in  the  face  of  unanswered  objections 
and  unexplained  mysteries.  Thus  physical  science  is  founded  in  faith 
in  the  same  sense  in  which  theological  knowledge  is  so  founded; 
because  its  knowledge  both  of  facts  and  of  the  universal  principles 
underlying  all  its  reasoning  is  self-evident,  unproved  and  unprovable 
knowledge.  And  theological  knowledge  is  founded  in  experience  as 
really  as  physical  science  is. 

We  properly  accept  this  knowledge  both  of  the  natural  and  the 
spiritual  as  real  knowledge  because  its  reality  as  knowledge  is  a  primi- 
tive datum  of  consciousness,  even  if  we  rest  on  that  as  an  ultimate  fact. 
But  theism  gives  also  rational  ground  for  the  reality  of  knowledge. 
For  theism  affirms  that  God  is  the  Absolute  Reason,  and  the  universe 
is  the  expression  of  the  truths,  laws  and  ideals  of  Absolute  Reason  and 
the  progressive  realization  of  the  ends  which  reason  approves  as 
worthy.  The  constitution  of  the  universe  therefore  expresses  these 
archetypal  principles  of  Absolute  Reason.  Theism  also  teaches  that 
man  is  in  the  image  of  God ;  his  reason,  then,  however  limited,  is  the 
same  in  kind  with  the  absolute  Reason ;  and  Reason  whether  in  God 
or  man  is  everywhere  and  always  the  same.  Thus  theism  gives 
rational  ground  of  the  reality  of  human  knowledge.  It  gives  rational 
ground  for  a  man's  knowing  the  reality  of  his  knowledge  when  he 
translates  the  facts  of  the  universe  even  to  the  remotest  space  and  time 
into  his  own  intellectual  and  scientific  forms,  factual  and  rational; 
when  he  assumes  that  the  necessary  principles  of  his  reason  are  not 
merely  subjective  and  regulative  of  his  own  thinking,  but  are  princi- 
ples of  reason  everywhere  and  always  the  same,  the  laws  of  things  as 
well  as  thought,  and  thus  finds  them  in  the  constitution  of  the  uni- 
verse. It  gives  rational  ground  for  the  postulation  of  the  correspon- 
dence of  man's  knowledge  with  the  reality  of  nature,  of  the  uniformity 
of  nature  which  is«  the  basis  of  scientific  induction,  of  the  identity  of 
plan  in  it  which  is  the  basis  of  classification,  analogy  and  systemiza- 
tion,  and  of  the  objective  universality  of  the  primitive  principles  of 
reason  which  regulate  all  thought.  It  gives  rational  ground  of  the 
reality  of  scientific  knowledge  in  declaring  the  common  origin  of  the 
universe  and  all  beings  in  it  in  the  power  of  God,  the  eternal  Reason, 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  AGNOSTICISM.  17 

energizing  in  its  creation  and  expressing  in  its  constitution  and  in  the 
laws  of  its  ongoing,  the  archetypal  thought  of  his  eternal  love  and 
wisdom. 

If  it  is  necessary  to  the  reality  of  human  knowledge  that  all  know- 
led  re  be  demonstrated,  or  that  the  mind  knowing  must  have  a  power 
above  itself  to  criticise  its  own  highest  powers  and  judge  of  their  trust- 
worthiness, or  that  it  must  know  reality  out  of  all  relation  to  its  facul- 
ties and  compare  with  it  what  it  knows  by  its  faculties,  or  that  know- 
ledge must  have  no  relation  to  a  mind,  then  certainly  knowledge  is  im- 
possible to  man.  But  each  of  these  demands  involves  absurdity  and 
self-contradiction. 

We  see  then  that  man  has  knowledge.  His  knowledge  begins  in  ex- 
perience as  self-evident,  primitive  knowledge,  it  proceeds  to  the  know- 
ledge of  realities  beyond  experience  by  processes  of  thought  under  the 
regulation  of  self-evident  and  universal  principles,  and  it  issues  in  the 
knowledge  of  God  and  of  the  universe  in  the  unity  of  a  rational, 
scientific  system  through  its  relations  to  God.  And,  theism,  when  at- 
tained, throws  its  light  back  on  human  knowledge,  and  by  disclosing 
God  the  absolute  Reason,  man  in  his  image,  and  the  universe  as  the 
expression  of  his  thought,  enables  us  to  look  beyond  the  fact  that  the 
reality  of  knowledge  is  an  ultimate  datum  of  consciousness  and  see  the 
eternal  ground  of  its  being  so. 

II.  Agnosticism  belies  the  constitution  and  consciousness  of  man, 
debars  itself  from  the  possibility  of  argument  in  its  own  support,  and 
contradicts  and  nullifies  itself. 

Because  it  denies  knowledge  on  the  ground  that  human  intelligence 
is  untrustworthy,  it  denies  the  possibility  of  knowledge  and  thus 
equally  denies  all  knowledge.  If  man  knows  anything  whatever,  he  is 
proved  capable  of  knowing,  and  agnosticism  is  totally  false.  I  have 
already  explained  why  agnostic  objections  are  entertained,  against 
theology  more  commonly  than  against  knowledge  in  other  spheres ;  but 
logically  and  rationally,  theology  is  no  more  invalidated  by  these  ob- 
jections than  astronomy  or  chemistry,  or  than  a  man's  knowledge  of 
the  road  home,  or  that  he  was  once  born,  or  that  the  beast  he  rides  is  a 
horse  and  not  a  sheep.  As  equally  denying  all  knowledge,  agnosticism 
is  equally  poAverless  against  all. 

It  contradicts  the  fundamental  and  universal  consciousness  of  man, 
which  persists  as  the  consciousness  of  knowing,  and  controls  the  entire 
action  of  mankind  not  excepting  those  who  propound  agnostic  specula- 
tions.- If  one  should  carry  out  in  action  the  doctrine  of  agnosticism, 
it  would  prove  him  insane. 

Agnosticism  precludes  the  possibility  of  argument  or  evidence  in  its 
support.     Argument  and  evidence  presuppose  knowledge.     It  is  impos- 
2 


18  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

sible  to  appeal  to  knowledge  in  proof  that  knowledge  is  impossible,  or 
to  reason  to  prove  that  reason  is  irrational  and  untrustworthy 

The  affirmation  of  agnosticism  is  self-contradictory  ;  it  is  the  affirma- 
tion of  knowledge  and  implies  its  reality.  Agnosticism  is  a  theory  of 
knowledge.  Hegel  says :  "  No  one  is  aware  that  anything  is  a  limit  or 
defect  until  at  the  same  time  he  is  above  and  beyond  it."  *  An  ox 
cannot  know  that  it  is  ignorant  of  the  multiplication  table  and  incom- 
petent to  learn  it.  If  man  were  incompetent  to  know  he  would 
be  equally  unconscious  of  his  deficiency.  If  I  say  that  my  beliefs 
are  delusive  and  not  knowledge,  I  assume  that  I  know  what  true 
knowledge  is,  and  by  comparing  my  own  beliefs  with  it  I  know  that 
they  are  illusive.  If  I  say  that  my  intellectual  faculties  are  untrust- 
worthy, I  assume  that  I  am  conscious  of  a  higher  faculty  by  which  I 
know  the  norm  or  standard  of  truth  and  judge  my  other  faculties  un- 
trustworthy. Hegel's  maxim  is  applicable  also  to  partial  agnosticism. 
If  I  affirm  that  I  have  knowledge  only  of  phenomena,  not  of  the  true 
reality  which  exists  as  a  "thing  in  itself"  out  of  all  relation  to  my  facul- 
ties, I  assume  a  knowledge  of  the  "  thing  in  itself "  and  of  phenomena 
as  distinguished  from  it.  When  Mr.  Tyndall  says  he  has  no  faculty 
and  no  rudiment  of  a  faculty  by  which  he  can  know  God,  he  already 
reveals  the  faculty  of  knowing  him.  If  the  existence  of  an  object  in- 
volves no  contradiction  and  I  can  form  a  conception  of  it,  then  I  am 
competent  to  know  it  if  evidence  of  its  existence  comes  within  the 
range  of  my  experience  and  my  thought.  When  Hamilton  and  Mansel 
affirm  that  we  have  only  a  negative  knowledge  of  the  Absolute  (which 
is  no  knowledge),  and  Spencer  affirms  that  the  Absolute  exists  but  is 
the  unknowable,  they  are  already  looking  over  the  limits  of  the  finite 
and  know  the  Absolute  as  existent  being.  If  they  had  no  power  to 
know  the  Absolute,  they  would  be  as  unconscious  of  their  ignorance  as 
an  ox  is  of  its  ignorance  of  geometry.  Accordingly  Hamilton  teaches 
that  we  cannot  know  the  Absolute,  yet  that  by  an  entirely  un- 
explained act  of  faith  we  believe  in  its  existence  and  accept  it  as  the 
supreme  object  of  worship,  love  and  obedience.  When  Mr.  Spencer 
speaks  of  "  the  unknowable,"  he  unwittingly  reveals  knowledge  of  it 
by  describing  it  as  "the  Absolute,"  as  "Cause,  Power,  or  Force  of 
which  every  phenomenon  is  a  manifestation,"  as  "some  Power  by 
which  we  are  acted  on,"  as  "omnipresent"  and  " persistent." f  So 
others,  who  deny  that  man  can  know  God,  refer  to  sin  and  suffering  in 
the  universe  as  incompatible  with  his  existence  and  thus  assume  know- 
ledge of  God  and  of  how  he  would  have  constituted  and  governed  the 
universe,  if  he  had  existed. 

*  Encyklopadie,  Vol.  I.  p.  121. 

t  First  Principles;  pp.  96,  98,  99,  258. 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  AGNOSTICISM.  19 

The  affirmation  of  agnosticism  is  also  in  itself  an  affirmation  that 
man  has  knowledge;  he  knows  that  he  cannot  know  anything.  If 
agnosticism  were  proved  true,  at  the  same  moment  it  would  be  proved 
false,  for  it  would  be  proved  that  we  know  the  truth  of  agnosticism. 
Aujrustine  has  exemplified  this  contradiction  in  a  passage  which  almost 
dizzies  the  reader  by  its  rapid  turns.  "  I  am  most  certain  that  I  am 
and  I  know  this  and  delight  in  it.  In  respect  to  these  truths  I  am  not 
at  all  afraid  of  the  arguments  of  the  Academicians  who  say:  '  What  if 
you  are  deceived?'  If  I  am  deceived,  I  am.  For  he  who  is  not,  cannot 
be  deceived ;  and  if  I  am  deceived,  by  this  token  /  am.  And  since  / 
tun,  if  I  am  deceived,  how  am  I  deceived  in  believing  that  I  am?  for  it 
is  certain  that  /  am,  if  I  am  deceived.  Since,  therefore,  I,  the  person 
deceived,  should  be,  even  if  I  were  deceived,  certainly  I  am  not 
deceived  in  the  knowledge  that  /  am.  Consequently  neither,  am  I 
deceived  in  knowing  that  /  know.  For  as  I  know  that  /  am,  so  I 
know  this  also,  that  J  know."  * 

If  the  Agnostic  says  that  he  does  not  dogmatically  deny  the  exis- 
tence or  reality  of  everything  or  anything,  but  only  affirms  his  igno- 
rance, he  at  least  avows  knowledge  of  his  own  ignorance  and  of  himself 
as  ignorant.  Ignorance  itself  is  knowledge  of  something  by  a  person 
knowing,  with  the  additional  knowledge  that  the  knowledge  of  that 
something  is  limited. 

If  he  says  that  he  does  not  affirm  even  his  own  ignorance,  but  that 
his  mind  is  in  a  state  of  continuous  skepticism,  doubting,  questioning, 
in  a  continuous  equipoise,  neither  believing  nor  disbelieving,  still  he 
affirms  his  knowledge  of  his  own  skepticism ;  also,  some  knowledge  is 
prerequisite  to  the  possibility  of  skepticism,  questioning  or  doubt. 
And  such  an  equipoise  is  a  state  of  unstable  equilibrium,  the  existence 
of  which  in  the  conscious  experience  of  man  even  on  a  single  question 
is  comparatively  rare.  We  may  safely  say  no  man  was  ever  perma- 
nently conscious  of  such  an  equipoise  on  all  objects  of  thought. 

Agnosticism  is  therefore  self-contradictory  and  self-annulling.  It  is 
not  a  legitimate  topic  for  argument,  and  has  no  claim  on  the  considera- 
tion of  any  rational  being.  It  continues  in  debate  only  because  skep- 
ticism thrusts  it  on  us  in  its  objections.  Otherwise  its  discussion  is  no 
more  pertinent  as  preliminary  to  theology  than  to  astronomy. 

III.  Any  theory  of  knowledge,  any  system,  or  any  proposition, 
which  involves  agnosticism,  is  thereby  proved  false  and  has  no  claim  to 
further  consideration. 

There  is  little  danger  that  agnosticism  will  find  acceptance  when 
distinctly  avowed  as  such.      It  is  not  likely  to  infect  men's  minds 
except  as  it  inoculates  with  its  virus  some  theory  ostensibly  affirming 
*Civitas  Dei,  Book  xi.  26. 


20  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

the  raality  of  knowledge,  but  essentially  involving  universal  agnosti- 
cism and  supported  by  objections  which,  if  sustained,  equally  invalidate 
all  knowledge.  It  is  a  sort  of  intellectual  trichiniasis  which  can  be 
communicated  to  man  only  through  the  "stye  of  Epicurus"  or  some 
other.  It  must  hide  itself  in  some  theory  which  in  words  affirms  the 
reality  of  knowledge,  in  order  to  conceal  the  unreason  which  is  its 
essence  and  to  disguise  the  deadliness  of  the  negation  which  it  injects. 

But  however  disguised,  every  theory,  system  or  proposition,  which 
essentially  involves  agnosticism,  is  demonstrated  to  be  false  so  soon  as 
the  agnosticism  essentially  involved  in  it  is  exposed. 

For  example,  while  reality  may  exist  unknowable  by  man  in  his 
present  condition  and  development,  we  positively  know  that  no  reality 
can  exist  out  of  all  relation  to  the  human  faculties  in  the  sense  that  it 
is  contradictory  to  the  necessary  and  universal  principles  which  are 
regulative  of  all  human  thinking,  nor  in  the  sense  that  it  is  the  only 
reality  and  that  all  which  man  knowrs  is  phenomenal  and  not  real. 
For  this  involves  agnosticism. 

Another  example  is  found  in  the  phenomenalism  of  this  day.  Prof. 
Clifford  says,  "  If  we  were  to  travel  forward  as  we  have  travelled 
backward  in  time  and  consider  things  as  falling  together,  we  should 
come  to  a  central  all,  in  one  piece,  which  would  send  out  waves  of  heat 
through  a  perfectly  empty  ether  and  gradually  cool  down.  As  this 
mass  got  cool  it  would  be  deprived  of  all  life  and  motion.  But  this 
conclusion,  like  the  one  we  discussed  about  the  beginning  of  the  world, 
is  one  Avhich  we  have  no  right  whatever  to  rest  on.  It  depends  on  the 
same  assumption,  that  the  laws  of  geometry  and  mechanics  are  ex- 
actly and  absolutely  true  and  that  they  will  continue  exactly  and 
absolutely  true  forever  and  ever.  Such  an  assumption  we  have  no 
right  whatever  to  make."  *  But  if  the  mathematics  on  which  astrono- 
mers rest  their  calculations  is  not  the  mathematics  of  the  planets  and 
the  stars  and  if  our  geometry  is  not  the  geometry  of  all  space,  then  our 
astronomy  is  good  for  nothing.  By  thus  denying  the  universal  truth 
of  mathematical  principles  Prof.  Clifford  destroys  the  foundation  of 
physical  science,  and  by  discrediting  the  principles  of  reason,  discredits 
all  human  knowledge.  And  thus  phenomenalism  is  proved  false,  be- 
cause it  necessarily  terminates  in  agnosticism. 

g  6.   Knowledge  and   Fallibility. 

One  may  be  certain  and  yet  afterwards  find  that  he  was  mistaken ; 

he  may  be  sure  that  he  has  true  knowledge  of  reality  and  afterwards 

find  that  it  was  only  an  erroneous  belief.     J.  G.  Fichte  "developed, 

with  most  admirable  rigor  of  demonstration,  a  scheme  of  idealism,  the 

*  Lectures  and  Essays,  Vol.  i.  p.  224. 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  AGNOSTICISM.  21 

purest,  simplest,  and  most  consistent  which  the  history  of  philosophy 
exhibits.  And  so  confident  was  he  in  the  necessity  of  his  proof,  that  on 
one  occasion  he  was  provoked  to  imprecate  eternal  damnation  on  his 
head,  if  he  should  ever  swerve  from  any,  even  the  least  of  the  doc- 
trines which  he  had  so  victoriously  established.  But  even  Fichte  in 
the  end  confesses  that  natural  belief  is  paramount  to  every  logical 
proof,  and  that  his  own  idealism  he  could  not  believe."  *  Hamilton 
was  sure  that  Fichte  had  confessed  himself  mistaken ;  but  he  himself 
may  only  have  believed  an  error;  since  others,  perhaps  better  ac- 
quainted with  Fichte's  writings,  insist  that  his  later  works  are  the 
consistent  development  of  his  earlier.  Similar  experience  is  common 
to  all  men.  Every  person  has  often  believed  to  be  true  what  others 
with  equal  assurance  have  believed  to  be  false ;  has  been  certain  that 
he  had  true  knowledge  of  reality,  and  afterwards  has  found  that  it 
was  only  an  erroneous  belief. 

It  is  objected  that  facts  like  these  disprove  the  possibility  of  know- 
ledge ;  that  when  one  has  found  himself  mistaken  in  his  certainty,  he 
can  never  be  certain  again.  He  will  say,  I  have  before  assuredly 
believed  that  I  had  true  knowledge  of  reality  and  have  found  myself 
mistaken.  If  I  am  equally  certain  now,  how  can  I  have  confidence 
that  I  shall  not  again  find  myself  mistaken  ?  Therefore,  the  objector 
argues,  even  if  a  belief  is  true,  it  can  never  be  known  to  be  true ;  it 
cannot  be  discriminated  from  false  belief.  But  belief  which  cannot  be 
known  to  be  true  is  not  knowledge ;  it  is  uncertainty  or  doubt ;  and 
the  objector  concludes  that  therefore  knowledge  is  impossible. 

I.  I  reply  that  the  objection,  if  valid,  proves  complete  agnosticism. 
Therefore  it  is  not  entitled  to  the  attention  of  rational  beings  and  may 
be  dismissed  from  further  consideration. 

It  is,  however,  a  favorite  objection  of  skeptics  against  philosophy 
and  theology.  Like  all  agnostic  objections  it  is  urged  as  having  a 
special  significance  against  these,  though  of  equal  force  against  all 
knowledge.  Mr.  Lewes  has  written  what  he  calls  a  History  of  Philos- 
ophy for  the  avowed  purpose  of  proving  from  the  mistakes,  uncertain- 
ties and  disagreements  of  philosophers  that  philosophy  is  impossible. 
The  objection  is  specious  and  sometimes  perplexes  sincere  inquirers. 
It  is  necessary,  therefore,  to  delay  a  little  in  order  to  show  that  the 
co-existence  of  knowledge  with  conscious  fallibility  is  entirely  reason- 
able, and  no  necessary  inconsistency  exists  between  them. 

II.  The  objection  assumes  as  a  fact  what  is  contrary  to  the  universal 
consciousness  of  man. 

It  is  not  a  fact  that  the  consciousness  of  having  been  mistaken 
precludes  certainty.     The  man  is  at  least  certain  that  he  was  mistaken. 
*  Hamilton  in  Reid's  Works,  p.  796. 


22  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

It  is  according  to  common  experience  and  observation  that  the  mis- 
takes which  men  discover  do  not  prevent  certainty  afterwards,  even  in 
respect  to  the  subject  about  which  they  know  they  have  been  mistaken. 
But  the  objection  rests  on  the  assumption  that  certainty  under  this 
condition  is  impossible.  The  objection  thus  assumes  as  a  fact  what  is 
contrary  to  the  universal  consciousness  of  man. 

III.  The  fact  that  man  is  constituted  capable  of  knowing  and  at  the 
same  time  finite  is  a  rational  ground  for  the  persistence  of  knowledge 
after  the  discovery  of  mistakes  and  for  the  co-existence  of  knowledge 
with  conscious  fallibility.     Man  cannot  cease  to  be  conscious  of  knowing 
unless  he  divests  himself  of  his  own  constitution ;  yet  being  finite,  his 
knowledge  must  always  be  limited  and  can  be  increased  only  by  pro- 
gressive acquisition.     In  acquiring  knowledge  he  is  liable  to  mistake. 
As  constituted  rational  he  is  capable  of  knowing ;  as  finite,  he  is  liable  to 
mistake.    The  objection  implies  that  the  reality  of  knowledge  is  proved 
by  reasoning  and  may  be  disproved  by  argument ;  but  the  knowledge 
that  I  know  is  inseparable  from  the  rational  constitution  of  man ;   it 
persists  through  all  mistakes  and  dissolves  them  into  knowledge,  like  a 
perennial  spring  whose  living  water  flows  through  the  snow  which 
obstructs  it  and  dissolves  it  into  its  own  swelling  volume. 

The  objection,  therefore,  implies  that  finite  or  limited  knowledge  is 
impossible.  It  insists  that  an  infallibility  which  precludes  all  mistakes 
is  a  necessary  prerequisite,  and  the  consciousness  of  it  a  necessary 
element  of  all  knowledge.  But  such  infallibility  implies  omniscience. 
The  objection  then  is  simply  the  absurdity  that  the  knowledge  of 
everything  is  a  necessary  prerequisite  to  the  knowledge  of  anything, 
and  that  the  consciousness  of  omniscience  is  an  essential  element  of  all 
knowledge.  And  for  this  nonsense  we  are  asked  to  acknowledge  that 
all  human  knowledge  is  unreal.  The  objection  belongs  to  that  type  of 
thought  which  denies  the  reality  of  finite  being  and  insists  that  the 
only  reality  is  in  the  Absolute  Being. 

IV.  In  human  intelligence  there  is  a  nucleus  of  knowledge  sur- 
rounded by  a  zone  of  probability,  opinion  and  doubt.     In  the  nucleus 
of  knowledge  having  the  highest  certitude  there  is  no  mistake ;   mis- 
takes are  in  our  reflective  thinking  on  this  knowledge,  in  our  interpre- 
tation of  it  and  inferences  from  it,  from  which  comes  the  zone  of  prob- 
ability, opinion  and  doubt. 

When  I  am  in  pain  I  may  mistake  its  cause,  but  I  cannot  mistake 
as  to  the  fact  of  pain.  I  may  mistake  as  to  the  shortest  road  home, 
but  I  cannot  mistake,  if  I  understand  the  terms,  as  to  a  straight  line 
being  the  shortest  distance  between  two  points.  I  may  know  with 
indefectible  certainty  that  darkness  is  not  light,  or  that  two  and 
two  make  four,  though  aware  that  I  have  sometimes  mistaken  the 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  AGNOSTICISM.  23 

light  of  the  rising  moon  for  that  of  the  rising  sun,  or  have  incor- 
rectly added  a  column  of  figures. 

The  changes  of  belief  alleged  as  proving  knowledge  unreal  are  often 
found  on  examination  to  be  changes  of  opinion  never  held  as  certain. 
There  has  been  a  rapid  succession  of  changes  in  the  science  of  geology 
for  many  years;  but  the  changes  have  been  in  theories  devised  to 
account  for  the  facts  rather  than  in  belief  of  the  facts  themselves. 
Or,  changes  in  scientific  teachings  are  of  conclusions  from  hasty  or 
incomplete  induction  or  deduction,  or  from  insufficient  observation, 
accepted  provisionally  as  probable  until  further  investigation  gives 
certainty.  These  theories  and  conclusions  are  often  put  forth  and 
received  as  science ;  but  intelligent  persons  hold  them  only  as  opinions 
or  theories  having  as  yet  no  claim  to  scientific  certainty.  There  is 
nothing  in  a  change  of  opinion  or  theory  to  throw  doubt  on  the  reality 
of  knowledge,  although  such  changes  are  often  used  as  facts  by  which 
the  objector  would  prove  the  instability  and  uncertainty  of  all  human 
beliefs. 

In  many  other  cases  the  change  is  of  a  belief  which  has  never  been 
scrutinized  and  formulated,  and  whose  grounds  and  reasonableness  the 
believer  has  never  investigated. 

V.  Through  all  mistakes  and  changes  of  opinion  the  great  mass  of 
knowledge  persists.  The  changes  of  belief  are  steps  in  an  enlargement 
and  confirmation  of  knowledge,  not  in  its  subversion  and  destruction. 

The  primitive  knowledge,  which  gives  the  material  for  thought  and 
the  laws  which  regulate  thinking,  necessarily  persists.  Aside  from 
the  primitive  knowledge,  the  greater  part  of  acquired  beliefs  persist; 
as  my  beliefs  that  I  was  once  born,  that  the  Roman  empire  once 
existed,  that  wheat  is  nutritious  food,  that  a  certain  neighbor  is  not  a 
drunkard.  Many  of  these  beliefs  are  continually  receiving  confirma- 
tion from  experience. 

The  same  is  true  of  scientific  beliefs.  The  recent  discovery  by 
astronomers  that  they  were  mistaken  as  to  the  exact  distance  of  the 
sun  from  the  earth  is  not  accompanied  by  any  change  in  the  great 
mass  of  astronomical  knowledge.  It  is  not  true  that  man's  beliefs  are 
in  continual  transition  and  flux.  The  mass  of  them  persist  as  know- 
ledge; the  ocean  remains  though  the  waves  are  always  rising  and 
breaking  and  falling  on  its  surface.  Physical  Science  is  advanced, 
with  many  a  mistake,  by  the  cumulative  evidence  of  persistent  obser- 
vation and  experience,  and  inferences  therefrom. 

The  same  is  true  of  changes  of  spontaneous  belief  when  scrutinized 
by  reflective  thought.  A  man  grows  up  in  the  religious  belief  of  his 
childhood,  without  inquiring  as  to  its  grounds.  The  first  objection  of 
skepticism  disconcerts  and  distresses  him ;  and  as  new  difficulties  are 


24  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF   THEISM. 

suggested,  he  is  ready  to  think  all  his  religious  faith  and  hope  must  be 
abandoned.  But  as  he  proceeds  to  investigate,  he  may  find,  as  multi- 
tudes have  done,  that  the  objections  are  not  valid,  that  his  belief  rests 
on  reasonable  grounds.  Thus  his  belief  returns,  sustained  and  con- 
firmed by  reason,  clearer,  stronger  and  more  reasonable  for  the  doubts 
which  it  has  looked  in  the  face  and  found  to  be  unreasonable.  It  has 
sent  down  its  roots  to  the  depth  where  is  perpetual  moisture,  and  its 
leaves  no  more  wither  and  it  does  not  cease  from  bearing  fruit.  In 
this  sense  it  is  true  that  the  way  to  true  belief  is  through  honest  doubt. 

If  the  objection  were  urged  on  an  astronomer  that  the  repeated  and 
great  changes  in  astronomical  systems  prove  the  untruthfulness  of  all 
astronomical  science,  he  would  reply  that  this  objection  was  the  denial 
a/like  of  reason  and  of  common  sense.  And  rightly ;  for  in  its  greatest 
changes,  like  the  transition  from  the  Ptolemaic  to  the  Copernican  sys- 
tems, astronomy  has  brought  along  with  it  into  the  new  system  a  mul- 
titude of  truths  and  facts  already  known  in  the  old,  and  but  for  the 
knowledge  of  these  it  could  not  have  advanced  to  the  new  system.  It 
is  simply  an  enlargement  and  growth  of  astronomical  knowledge,  not 
its  extinction. 

The  empirical  scientist,  if  candid,  will  allow  the  same  explanation  'of 
changes  in  philosophy  and  religious  belief  which  he  gives  for  those  in 
empirical  science.  In  urging  this  objection,  the  objector  commonly 
includes  agnosticism  in  philosophy  and  urges  it  as  proving  that  philos- 
ophy is  self-contradictory.  But  both  empirical  science  and  philosophy 
presuppose  the  reality  of  knowledge,  and  agnosticism  is  no  more  a 
part  of  the  latter  than  of  the  former.  This  error  in  applying  the 
objection  being  corrected,  certainly  the  differences  and  changes  of 
opinion  and  the  controversies  attending  them  in  philosophy  are 
scarcely  more  numerous  and  frequent  than  in  physical  science.  And 
as  through  all  changes  of  physical  science,  so  through  all  the  changes 
of  philosophy  a  mass  of  truth  common  to  all  philosophy  is  carried 
forward  and  becomes  greater  and  clearer  in  the  progress  of  philosophi- 
cal thought.  Renan  says,  "  Who  knows  if  the  metaphysics  and  theol- 
ogy of  the  past  will  not  be  to  those  which  the  progress  of  speculation 
will  one  day  reveal,  what  the  Cosmos  of  Anaximenes  is  to  the  Cosmos 
of  Laplace  and  Humboldt?"*  And  in  philosophy  as  in  physical 
science,  the  differences  and  the  changes  of  belief  have  been  steps  in 
the  enlargement  and  completion  of  philosophy,  not  in  its  subversion 
and  destruction. 

The  same  is  true  of  religious  belief.  It  has  been  well  said,  "  Nothing 
has  been  so  disputed  about  in  the  world  as  the  Christian  religion,  un- 
less it  be  nature  itself.  It  is  because,  more  than  anything  else,  it  has 
*L'avenir  Religieux  des  Societes  Modernes,  subfinem. 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  AGNOSTICISM,  25 

the  simplicity  and  complexity  of  nature."*  There  is  truth  common  to 
all  religions.  In  the  divisions  of  Christianity  the  beliefs  held  in 
common  are  usually  more  in  number  and  more  important  than  the 
beliefs  which  differ.  Because  religion  is  life,  and  the  decay  of  re- 
ligious life  is  attended  with  decay  of  religious  belief,  the  problem  of  the 
progress  of  religious  knowledge  is  more  complicated  than  the  progress 
of  science,  and  a  sinking  from  a  greater  knowledge  to  a  less  and  from 
belief  of  truth  to  belief  of  error  is  more  likely ;  yet  even  in  religious 
knowledge  the  changes  of  belief  have  been  predominantly  incident  to 
the  enlargement  of  the  knowledge.  It  is  not  the  Christian  who  goes 
back  to  polytheism,  nor  the  polytheist  who  goes  back  to  fetichism,  any 
more  than  the  Copernican  goes  back  to  the  Ptolemaic  system  of 
astronomy,  or  the  chemist  from  belief  in  oxygen  to  belief  in  phlogiston. 
And  as  men  have  advanced  from  the  lower  types  of  religion  to  the 
higher,  they  have  brought  with  them  whatever  of  their  religious  beliefs 
remained  true  in  the  presence  of  their  enlarged  knowledge,  and  have 
sloughed  off  only  those  which  had  been  exposed  as  errors.f 

Fetichism  recognises  the  supernatural  every  where  in  nature.  Poly- 
theism does  not  cease  to  recognise  the  supernatural  in  nature,  but 
recognises  it  with  more  intelligence  as  divinities  distinct  from  nature, 
energizing  in  its  several  realms  and  through  its  mightiest  powers. 
When  in  the  Roman  Empire  polytheism  was  carried  to  its  extreme 
development,  when  an  infant  had  one  guardian  divinity  in  its  sleeping, 
another  in  its  rising,  another  in  its  crying,  and  another  in  its  walking, 
when  in  the  growth  of  wheat,  the  germinating,  the  growth  of  the  blade, 
the  forming  of  the  joints  in  the  stalk,  the  setting  of  the  grain  had  each 
its  separate  divinity,  J  this  was  the  recognition  of  the  divine  presence, 
activity  and  care  in  all  nature  and  in  all  human  life.  Monotheism 
perpetuated  this  truth  and  clarified  and  enlarged  it  in  the  knowledge 
of  one  personal  God  pervading  the  universe  with  wisdom  and  love,  and 
ordering  all  its  courses  for  the  realization  of  the  highest  rational  ends. 
The  gods  that  had  crowded  the  world  vanished  and  the  world  was 
filled  with  the  fullness  of  God. 

*  E.  D.  Mead,  "  Carlyle,"  p.  27. 

fUnter  der  Hiille  aller  Religionen  liegt  die  Religion  selbst. — Schiller. 

jVaticanus  the  deity  that  opens  the  infant's  mouth  in  crying;  Levana  lifts  it; 
Cunina  watches  over  the  cradle  ;  Rumina  brings  out  the  milk ;  Potina  presides  over 
its  drinking ;  Educa  over  the  supplying  of  food. 

Seia  cares  for  the  grain  when  sown  beneath  the  ground  ;  Segetia  for  the  rising 
blade  ;  Proserpina  for  the  germinating  of  the  seed ;  Nodutus  presides  over  the  forma- 
tion of  the  joints  and  knots ;  Yolutina  over  the  sheaths  infolding  the  stalk  ;  Patelana 
over  the  opening  of  the  sheath  ;  Flora  over  the  flowering:  Lacturnus  over  the  grain 
while  in  the  milk;  Matuta  over  the  ripened  grain;  Tutilina  over  the  harvesting: 
Runcina  over  the  removal  from  the  soil ;  Spiniensis  over  rooting  out  the  thorns ; 
Rubigo  protects  from  mildew. — Augustine  Civitas  Dei,  Lib.  iv.  8,  21. 


26  TH^  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 


During  the  first  Christian  centuries  the  Roman  polytheists  were 
outgrowing  their  ancient  religion  and  were  introducing  from  the  East 
religions  that  might  better  meet  their  wants.  Before  his  conversion  to 
Christianity,  Constantine  wras  a  believer  in  one  God,  the  Sun-God  of 
the  Persians.*  When  he  saw  the  cross  on  the  Sun,  it  signified  to  him 
that  the  Christian's  God,  who  is  a  spirit,  in  righteousness  and  mercy 
redeeming  the  world  from  sin  to  Christ-like  love,  is  superior  to  the 
Sun-God  whom  he  had  worshiped,  and  must  rightfully  displace  him. 
Whether  the  story  is  historically  true  or  not,  its  significance  and 
pertinence  remain  unchanged. 

Thus  under  all  ignorance,  doubt,  probability,  and  all  changes  of 
belief  is  knowledge  of  reality,  which  from  childhood  to  age  in  the 
individual  and  from  century  to  century  in  mankind  is  becoming  larger 
and  clearer  and  is  putting  away  errors  in  its  growth.  And  though 
other  errors  spring  up,  tfrey  are  incidental  to  investigation  and  to  pro- 
gress in  knowledge,  not  effective  of  its  subversion  and  destruction. 
The  legitimate  influence  of  mistakes  is  not  to  annul  our  knowledge,  but 
to  lead  us  to  greater  carefulness  and  thoroughness  of  investigation. 

All  this  is  only  saying  that  man,  though  limited,  is  constituted  intel- 
ligent and  rational,  that  is,  with  the  power  of  knowing  ;  that  he  can 
enlarge  his  knowledge  and  clarify  it  from  errors  by  observation  and 
reflection,  and  that  the  pursuit  of  knowledge  is  a  legitimate  function  of 
the  human  mind,  and  not,  as  Lessing  has  represented  it,  an  ineffectual 
seeking  prosecuted  for  the  mere  pleasure  of  the  search,  a  fruitless  hunt 
prosecuted  for  the  mere  excitement  of  the  chase. 

3  7.  Criteria  of  Primitive  Knowledge. 

The  question  nowr  arises  whether  there  are  criteria  by  which  we  can 
discriminate  among  our  beliefs  those  which  are  primitive  and  true 
knowledge  of  reality  from  those  which  are  not%  It  has  already  been 
shown  that  we  know  that  we  know  only  in  the  act  of  knowing. 
Therefore  the  only  possible  criterion  must  in  some  way  be  knowledge 
itself.  Four  criteria,  consistent  with  this  restriction,  may  be  named. 

I.  The  first  criterion  is  of  course  the  knowledge  itself  as  it  rises  clear 
and  convincing  in  its  own  self-evidence  ;  it  is  the  self-evidence  of  the 
knowledge.  This  is  the  true  significance  of  the  criterion  of  Descartes: 
"Having  observed  that  there  is  nothing  whatever  in  this,  '/  think 
therefore  I  am,'  which  assures  me  that  I  say  the  truth,  save  only  that  I 
see  very  clearly  that  in  order  to  think  it  is  necessary  to  be,  I  concluded 
that  I  could  take  for  a  general  rule  that  things  which  we  conceive  very 
clearly  and  distinctly  are  all  true  things."  f  That  is,  knowledge  is  real 

*  Uhlhorn,  Conflict  of  Christianity  and  Heathenism. 
fOeuvres  Vol.  iii.  p.  90,  Principes  de  Philosophic. 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  AGNOSTICISM.  27 

and  true  when  it  stands  in  the  mind  clear  and  distinct  in  its  own  self- 
evidence  and  asserts  itself  as  knowledge. 

II.  The  second  criterion  is  the  impossibility  of  thinking  the  contrary 
to  be  true.  This  is  merely  the  first  criterion  reversed.  The  positive 
knowledge  is  tested  by  an  effort  to  reject  it  and  believe  the  contrary. 
If  it  is  found  impossible,  the  reality  of  the  knowledge  is  more  clearly 
disclosed.  It  is  analogous  to  testing  the  strength  of  material,  first  by  a 
direct  strain,  then  by  a  transverse. 

This  test  is  commonly  applied  to  the  universal  and  self-evident  prin- 
ciples which  regulate  all  thought;  for  example,  it  is  impossible  to 
think  of  space  as  discontinuous,  or  to  think  of  both  of  two  contradic- 
tory propositions  as  simultaneously  true.  In  these  cases  it  is  impossi- 
ble to  think  the  contrary  as  true  in  any  place  or  time  or  under  any 
circumstances  or  conditions. 

The  test  is  equally  applicable  to  knowledge  of  a  particular  reality 
present  to  consciousness  here  and  now;  for  example,  my  knowledge 
that  I  feel  a  pain.  In  such  a  case  it  is  possible  to  think  the  reality  to 
be  unreal  at  another  place  and  time  or  under  other  conditions ;  but  so 
long  as  it  is  present  in  consciousness  I  can  no  more  think  it  to  be 
absent,  or  unknown  or  unreal  than  I  can  think  that  a  thing  may  be 
and  not  be  at  the  same  time.  In  the  knowledge  of  a  primitive  and 
universal  principle  the  impossibility  to  thought  of  its  contradictory  is 
universal.  In  the  knowledge  of  a  particular  fact  the  impossibility  to 
thought  exists  only  in  a  particular  place  and  time  and  under  partic- 
ular conditions.  Herbert  Spencer  states  it  thus :  "  In  the  one  instance 
the  antecedents  of  the  conviction  are  present  only  on  special  occasions, 
while  in  the  other  they  are  present  on  all  occasions.  In  either  case, 
subject  the  mind  to  the  required  antecedents  and  no  belief  save  the 
appropriate  one  is  conceivable.  But  while  in  the  first  case  only  a 
single  object  serves  for  the  antecedent,  in  the  other  any  object,  real  or 
imagined,  serves  for  antecedent."  * 

The  fact  that  this  second  criterion  is  the  converse  of  the  first  is  im- 
portant, especially  in  its  application  to  the  primitive  beliefs  of  universal 
principles  which  are  regulative  of  all  thinking.  It  implies  that  these 
beliefs  do  not  result  from  intellectual  impotence,  as  Hamilton  teaches 
in  respect  to  the  causal  judgment,  but  from  positive  knowledge.  The 
belief  of  the  principle  does  not  result  from  impotence  to  think  the 
contrary,  but  the  impossibility  of  thinking  the  contrary  results  from 
the  self-evident  and  positive  belief.  It  is  not  a  negation  of  knowledge 
arising  from  incapacity  to  think,  but  knowledge  so  positive  that  it 
carries  in  itself  the  consciousness  that  it  is  impossible  to  think  the 

*The  Universal  Postulate;  Westminster  Review,  Oct.  1853.  See  also  his  Psy- 
chology, §g  426-437. 


28  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

contrary.  It  therefore  gives  no  basis  to  the  doctrine  that  God  is 
unknowable,  which  is  inferred  from  Hamilton's  theory  of  mental 
impotence. 

It  must  also  be  noticed  that  that  which  is  impossible  to  thought  or 
unthinkable  must  be  distinguished  from  the  inconceivable,  whether  by 
the  inconceivable  is  meant  the  unimaginable,  or  that  which  is  not 
conceived  in  a  logical  concept  or  general  notion.  This  distinction  is 
important  because  it  is  often  urged  by  agnostics  that  because  God  is 
inconceivable  he  must  be  unknowable. 

If  by  the  inconceivable  is  meant  the  unimaginable,  that  which  can- 
not be  pictured  in  the  imagination,  we  need  not  look  far  to  discover 
that  the  thinkable  and  knowable  is  not  restricted  to  the  conceivable. 
A  person  blind  or  deaf  from  birth  knows  that  there  are  people  who  see 
and  hear,  that  there  are  light  and  color  and  sound.  But  the  blind  man 
cannot  picture  light  and  shade  and  color  to  his  imagination,  nor  the 
deaf  man  sound.  Dr.  Maudsley  says  of  Kruse,  who  was  completely 
deaf,  that  "  musical  tones  seemed  to  his  perception  to  have  much  ana- 
logy with  colors.  The  sound  of  a  trumpet  was  yellow  to  him ;  that  of 
a  drum  red ;  that  of  the  organ  green."  *  So  it  is  possible  to  think  of  a 
being  endowed  with  a  sixth  sense,  although  it  is  impossible  to  imagine 
what  the  revelations  of  the  sense  \vould  be.  I  know  there  is  a  branch 
of  Mathematics  called  Quaternions,  but  I  cannot  picture  its  methods 
to  my  imagination  because  I  have  not  used  them.  The  general 
notion  horse  is  thinkable  and  knowable ;  I  can  denote  it  by  a  symbol, 
spoken  or  written  ;  but  it  is  not  imaginable ;  if  I  try  to  picture  it  to  the 
imagination  I  get  only  a  particular  horse,  of  a  definite  size,  color  and 
action.  It  is  idle  then  to  argue  that  whatevever  is  inconceivable  in  the 
sense  of  unimaginable  is  therefore  impossible  to  thought  and  cannot  be 
known  as  real. 

If  by  inconceivable  is  meant  that  which  cannot  be  formed  with 
other  individuals  of  the  same  kind  into  a  general  notion,  it  is  also 
evident  that  what  is  possible  to  thought  and  knowledge  is  not  re- 
stricted to  the  conceivable  in  this  sense ;  because  the  knowledge  of  the 
individual  precedes  the  knowledge  of  the  general  notion ;  the  know- 
ledge of  the  general  notion  is  conditioned  on  the  knowledge  of  the 
individual. 

Therefore  this  second  criterion  must  not  be  understood  as  affirming 
that  a  belief  is  true  wrhen  its  contrary  is  inconceivable,  but  only  that  it 
is  true  when  the  mind  in  its  reflex  action  on  its  own  knowledge,  finds 
it  impossible  to  think  its  contrary  as  real  or  true  under  the  existing 
conditions;  and,  in  the  case  of  intuitions  of  primitive  and  universal 
principles,  finds  it  impossible  to  think  the  contrary  true  under  any 

*  Physiology  and  Pathology  of  the  Mind,  p.  45. 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  AGNOSTICISM.  29 

conditions ;    finds  in  fact  that  the  assertion  of  the  contrary  would  be 

use,  words  used  without  meaning.     Thus  the  common  objection  of 

agnostics  that  God  is  unknowable  because  in  either  or  both  of  these 

C 

senses  he  is  inconceivable,  is  seen  to  be  without  force. 

III.  The  third  criterion  of  knowledge  is  its  persistence  in  face  of  all 
efforts  of  reflective  thought  to  disprove  it.  By  the  persistence  of  belief 
in  face  of  objection,  ratiocination,  and  all  reflective  thought  upon  it, 
the  mind  ascertains  that  it  is  impossible  to  think  the  contrary  and  that 
the  belief  stands  impregnable  in  its  clearness  and  evidence  as  know- 
ledge. 

This  persistence  may  appear  in  two  ways.  It  may  appear  as  persis- 
tence of  intellectual  assent  notwithstanding  all  argument  against  it. 
It  may  also  appear  as  persistence  of  spontaneous  belief  practically  con- 
trolling action,  even  when,  as  the  result  of  speculative  thinking,  it  is 
conceded  that  the  belief  is  untenable  and  its  contrary  is  affirmed  as 
true.  Thus  the  idealist  continues  to  be  practically  controlled  by  belief 
in  the  real  existence  of  bodies,  and  the  materialist  by  the  belief  that  he 
is  a  free  and  responsible  agent. 

In  applying  this  principle  we  may  refer  to  the  persistence  of  know- 
ledge in  our  own  individual  experience,  and  also  in  the  experience  of 
mankind.  We  are  not,  indeed,  to  decide  between  the  true  and  the 
false  by  the  votes  of  a  majority.  But  in  investigating  the  experience 
of  mankind  we  are  not  seeking  to  decide  any  question  by  votes,  but 
simply  to  ascertain  what  are  the  persistent,  essential  and  primitive 
elements  of  human  intelligence.  There  is  difficulty  here  in  ascertain- 
ing the  facts ;  for  the  multitude  of  men  have  given  us  no  information 
as  to  their  conscious  experience.  But  from  observation,  literature  and 
history  we  have  attained  a  large  knowledge  of  the  characteristics  of 
humanity,  and  the  researches  of  anthropologists  are  continually  in- 
creasing it.  From  these  sources  it  is  possible  to  ascertain  what  senti- 
ments and  beliefs  are  found  persisting  in  all  the  experience  of  man. 
And  if  we  find  knowledge  either  of  a  particular  reality  or  of  a  univer- 
sal principle  which  has  been  an  element  in  all  human  experience,  has 
consciously  or  unconsciously  controlled  all  human  thinking,  and  has 
persisted  through  all  the  changing  conditions  and  progress  of  men,  this 
persistence  we  accept  as  a  mark  of  primitive,  self-eviflent  knowledge 
springing  directly  from  the  human  constitution  and  revealing  the  ex- 
ternal environment  common  to  all  mankind. 

It  may  be  objected  that  illusions  of  sense  persist  through  all  the  ex- 
perience of  mankind ;  to  the  vision  of  man  the  firmament  is  always  an 
azure  dome,  the  heavenly  bodies  move  in  it,  parallel  lines  seem  to 
converge;  and  it  is  objected  that  these  persistent  illusions  make  the 
criterion  useless.  I  answer  that  all  that  persists  in  these  so-called  illu- 


30  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF   THEISM. 

sions  is  true  and  real.  In  vision,  for  example,  the  man  sees  the 
external  objects  precisely  as  the  eye  presents  them.  In  the  seeming 
convergence  of  parallel  rails  his  eye  reports  truly  the  physical  reality  of 
the  lessening  of  the  angle  of  vision  with  increasing  distance.  His  intel- 
lect interprets  the  sensation.  If  there  is  any  error  it  is  not  in  the 
sensation  but  in  his  interpretation  of  it.  And  this  error  does  not  per- 
sist. The  belief  that  the  heavenly  bodies  move  around  the  earth  or 
that  the  firmament  is  a  solid  dome,  has  not  persisted. 

IV.  The  fourth  criterion  of  primitive  knowledge  is  the  consistency 
of  itself  and  its  necessary  outcome  with  all  knowledge.  This  criterion 
is  of  great  practical  importance  in  scientific  and  all  other  reflective 
thought.  It  has  recently  been  said,  "  Internal  consistency  and  harmony 
was  the  only  test  of  truth  known  to  antique  thought ;  and  it  supple- 
mented the  appeal  to  actual  authority  characteristic  of  mediaeval 
thought."  *  This  is  an  example  of  a  common  style  of  remark  depreci- 
ating ancient  and  especially  mediaeval  thought.  Such  remarks  grossly 
misrepresent  the  facts.  And  the  depreciation  of  this  criterion  as  of 
little  value  is  contradicted  by  the  continual  use  of  it  in  modern 
thought.  The  verification  on  which  science  insists  so  strenuously  as 
necessary  to  establish  an  hypothesis  is  nothing  but  ascertaining  the 
consistency  of  a  conclusion  of  reflective  thought  with  the  results  of 
observation.  It  is  true,  the  mere  self-consistency  of  a  conception  does 
not  prove  that  it  is  a  conception  of  reality.  I  may  form  a  consistent 
theory  of  the  government  of  fairies  by  Oberon  and  Titania.  It  is  con- 
sistent with  all  knowTn  facts  that  beyond  Neptune  there  may  be  a 
planet  belonging  to  the  solar  system.  These  are  only  creations  of 
imagination  or  conjectural  possibilities,  and  do  not  present  themselves 
in  consciousness  as  knowledge.  Mere  consistency  of  thought  cannot 
originate  knowledge,  but  it  may  test  it.  Man  has  varied  powers  or 
faculties,  and  knowledge  obtained  through  one  faculty  or  from  one 
sphere  of  investigation  must  be  consistent  with  knowledge  obtained 
from  every  other.  This  consistency  is  a  criterion  of  knowledge.  What 
I  perceive  by  the  eye  I  test  by  the  hand.  The  correctness  of  an  arith- 
metical division  is  tested  by  multiplication.  If  a  necessary  inference 
from  a  supposed  principle  is  false,  it  compels  us  to  doubt  either  the 
truth  of  *the  principle  or  the  correctness  of  our  reasoning  from  it. 
Speculative  conclusions  must  be  tested  by  observed  facts.  If  an 
observed  fact  contradicts  an  accepted  conclusion  of  science,  the  obser- 
vation must  be  repeated  and  corrected  or  the  scientific  conclusion  must 
be  modified.  The  whole  process  of  verification  is  an  ascertaining  of 
the  consistency  or  inconsistency  of  the  results  attained  by  one  intellec- 
tual power  or  process  and  from  one  sphere  of  inquiry  with  those  at- 
*  The  Value  of  Life;  A  Reply  to  Mallock,  p.  73. 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  AGNOSTICISM.  31 

tained  from  others.  And  so  far  as  from  all  we  obtain  successively  the 
same  results,  our  knowledge  is  tested  and  confirmed. 

The  same  criterion  may  be  applied  in  testing  what  is  primitive 
kn  )wle<l_re.  If  the  intuitions  of  reason  contradict  each  other  they  are 
proved  false  and  at  the  same  time  reason  itself  is  proved  untrustworthy. 
If  what  seems  to  be  primitive  knowledge  and  its  necessary  outcome  is 
inconsistent  with  itself  or  with  other  knowledge  it  is  not  primitive 
knowledge. 

But  the  criterion  is  not  merely  negative.  If  primitive  knowledge  is 
found  to  be  in  harmony  with  experience,  if  the  first  principles  which 
regulate  thought  do  not  lead  us  in  our  reasonings  to  error  and  contra- 
diction but  to  conclusions  which  all  our  powers  in  concurrence  acknow- 
ledge as  truth,  if  what  we  in  our  philosophy  hold  to  be  primitive 
knowledge  conditioning  experience,  is  in  harmony  with  our  actual 
experience,  then  we  may  properly  say  that  it  is  continually  verified  by 
experience.  It  is  consistent  with  itself  and  with  all  knowledge. 

It  must  be  observed  respecting  the.  four  criteria,  that  the  mind  does 
not  consciously  appeal  to  them  in  the  primitive  acts  of  knowing,  but 
only  in  reflection  on  its  own  acts  and  in  answer  to  the  question  whether 
knowledge  is  real.  If  then  it  is  seen  that  the  knowledge  stands  out 
clear  and  distinct  in  its  own  self-evidence,  that  it  is  impossible  to  think 
the  contrary  as  real,  that  the  belief  persists  in  spontaneously  regu- 
lating thought  and  action  in  the  face  of  all  speculative  objections,  and 
that  it  not  only  does  not  contradict  any  other  knowledge,  but  is 
accordant  with  all  our  thinking  and  experience,  it  is  accepted  as  real 
knowledge.  If  not,  knowledge  is  impossible. 

g  8.  Knowing,  Feeling  and  Willing. 

I.  Knowing,  feeling  and  willing  are  distinct  but  not  separate. 

They  are  not  separated  in  human  experience.  In  every  feeling  there 
must  be  knowledge  or  belief.  Every  act  or  will  involves  feeling  which 
is  its  motive,  and  knowledge,  which  is  the  light  in  which  the  determina- 
tion is  made  and  without  which  freedom  of  determination  is  impossible. 
And  knowledge  remains  but  nascent  and  cannot  be  apprehended  in  its 
complete  significance  until  it  reveals  itself  in  feeling  and  discharges 
itself  in  voluntary  action.  The  Speculative  Reason  cannot  find  the 
content  and  significance  of  its  own  necessary  ideas  nor  solve  its  own 
necessary  problems  until  it  becomes  the  Practical  Reason. 

Dean  Swift  compares  the  man  of  culture  to  the  bee,  which  "  visits 
all  the  flowers  of  the  field  and  of  the  garden  and  by  an  universal 
search,  much  study  and  distinction  of  things,  brings  home  honey  and 
wax.  .  .  .  thus  furnishing  mankind  with  the  two  noblest  things, 


32  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

sweetness  and  light."*  Matthew  Arnold  has  popularized  Swift's  con- 
ception of  culture  as  comprising  sweetness  and  light — the  light  of 
knowledge  and  the  sweetness  of  right  feeling,  action  and  character. 
These  are  necessary  elements  of  culture  because  knowing,  feeling  and 
willing  are  indissolubly  united  in  man's  personality  ;  they  exist  simulta- 
neously in  the  same  mental  state,  and  no  one  of  them  can  in  fact 
complete  itself  without  the  others.  The  light  is  for  no  purpose  without 
the  sweetness,  and  the  sweetness  runs  to  waste  and  disappears  without 
the  light. 

But  wrhile,  in  human  experience,  knowing,  feeling  and  willing  are 
never  separated,  they  are  distinguished.  They  are  not  disparted  organs 
or  faculties ;  but  they  are  different  aspects  of  the  same  mental  states, 
different  poles  of  the  same  mental  energy,  different  phases  of  the  same 
indivisible  personality.  They  are  clearly  presented  in  consciousness 
and  recognised  in  thought  as  different.  The  difference  of  knowing, 
feeling  and  willing  is  apprehended  by  every  mind  and  is  at  the  basis  of 
all  reflection  on  the  mental  processes  and  powers.  To  deny  it  is  to 
make  all  psychology  impossible  and  all  language  respecting  mental 
acts  and  processes  unintelligible. 

II.  True  philosophy  must  recognize  both  the  inseparableness  and  the 
distinctness  of  the  three.  Any  theory  of  knowledge  which  overlooks 
either  the  one  or  the  other  is  false  and  necessarily  prolific  of  errors. 

1.  At  present  perhaps  the  more  common  tendency  is  to  overlook  the 
close  factual  connection  of  the  speculative  intellect  with  the  practical 
side  of  human  nature,  to  insist  that  true  knowledge  can  be  acquired 
only  in  the  complete  isolation  of  the  intellectual  process  from  all  feel- 
ing, volition  and  choice,  and  so  to  exalt  the  speculative  intellect  at  the 
expense  of  the  moral,  the  sesthetic,  the  religious  and  the  practical  in 
man.  This  tendency  may  explain  some  of  the  defects  and  errors  of 
psychology,  metaphysics  and  Christian  theology;  it  is  even  more  ob- 
trusive and  more  potent  for  evil  in  the  materialistic  speculations  which 
swarm,  like  poisonous  flies,  around  the  head  of  "  star-eyed  science."  I 
will  exemplify  it  in  Christian  theology.  Some  theologians  have  in- 
sisted that  the  Spirit  of  God  can  influence  the  human  soul  only  by 
presenting  truth  to  the  intellect.  An  eminent  divine  preaching  in 
Boston  many  years  ago  declared:  "If  I  could  present  truth  to  the 
mind  as  clearly  as  the  Holy  Spirit  does,  I  could  convert  souls  as  easily 
as  He."  This  supposes  man  to  be  a  creature  of  intellect  alone,  whose 
action  is  excited  afld  directed  invariably  in  a  sort  of  mechanical  way 
by  processes  of  logic.  But  in  a  multitude  of  cases  every  man  acts 
from  feeling  with  scarcely  the  consciousness  of  belief  or  thought.  If 
he  meets  a  tiger  in  a  jungle,  his  fear  makes  him  run  without  a  process 
*  Battle  of  the  Books ;  Swift's  Works,  Vol.  i.  pp.  203,  205. 


KNOWLEDGE  AXD   AGNOSTICISM.  33 

of  reasoning.  So  preaching  when  addressed  exclusively  to  the  intellect 
is  dry,  while  eloquence  touches  the  whole  man  and  in  enlightening  the 
intellect  fires  also  the  heart.  And  what  is  the  power  of  music?  Why 
does  a  cheerful  face  diffuse  its  sunshine,  and  gloomy  looks  spread  like 
a  chilling  mist  to  all?  What  is  the  power  of  a  commanding  presence, 
or  of  the  self-possession  and  courage  of  a  single  person  in  a  time  of 
danger  and  general  consternation?  What  did  General  Sheridan  impart 
to  his  fleeing  army  in  Virginia,  when  his  mere  coming  into  sight 
changed  defeat  into  victory?  The  power  of  mere  argument  in  deter- 
mining the  opinions,  conduct  and  character  of  individuals,  the  courses 
of  history  and  the  development  of  civilization  has  been  greatly  over- 
rated. The  element  of  feeling  commonly  enters  into  the  formation  of 
opinions.  Men  adopt  opinions,  not  because  they  have  logically  proved 
them,  but  because  they  suit  their  feelings,  are  in  harmony  with  their 
characters  and  their  views  of  human  life  and  accordant  with  their 
chosen  ends.  Nor  must  opinion  be  erroneous  because  founded  on  the 
feelings.  If  the  feelings  on  which  it  is  founded  are  right,  the  opinion 
will  be  likely  to  be  right.  If  a  pure  woman  passes  on  the  sidewalk  the 
entrance  to  a  by-way  to  hell,  whence  come  up  the  reek  of  the  stews, 
the  babble  of  drunkards,  and  the  words  of  obscenity  and  profaneness, 
her  pure  feelings  drive  her  away  before  she  has  time  to  think.  A  pure 
spirit  in  heaven  may  follow  his  feelings  as  safely  as  his  judgment. 
There  are  as  many  erroneous  opinions  founded  on  false  logic  as  on 
wrong  feelings.  Men  do  not  commonly  believe  in  God  because  they 
have  proved  his  existence,  but  because  their  whole  spiritual  being  cries 
out  for  him,  is  smothered  without  him,  and  refreshed,  inspired  and 
ennobled  by  his  presence.  The  soul  responds  to  the  touch  of  the  di- 
vine as  the  string  of  the  viol  to  the  touch  of  the  musician.  An  atheist, 
who  had  been  pressed  with  many  an  argument  without  conviction,  was 
one  day  felling  a  tree.  As  the  tree  came  crashing  down,  these  words, 
from  the  memory  of  childhood,  flashed  on  his  mind :  "  As  the  tree  fall- 
eth  so  it  shall  lie ;  and  as  death  leaves  us  so  judgment  must  find  us." 
It  awakened  his  consciousness  of  responsibility  and  of  sin;  and  he 
found  no  peace  till  he  found  it  in  faith  in  God.  A  most  reasonable 
conversion,  though  unreasoning.  For  whatever  may  awaken  the  spir- 
itual in  the  constitution  of  man  awakens  it  to  the  consciousness  of  God. 
Hence  the  unexpected  and  seemingly  inexplicable  breaking  down  of 
religious  unbelief  in  the  great  crises  of  life.  When  the  shadow  of 
death  is  glooming  on  the  soul  and  the  body  is  sinking  to  its  last  sleep, 
the  spirit  awakens  and  finds  itself,  as  it  always  must  when  it  awakens, 
face  to  face  with  God.  » 

The  intellect,  therefore,  is  not  the  only  inlet  by  which  the  truth  can 
enter  and  influence  a  man.     His  soul  is  like  a  great  cathedral  admit- 
3     • 


34  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

ting  light  through  many  windows,  each  stained  its  own  color  and  hav- 
ing its  own  pictures ;  yet  not  falsifying  the  light,  but  showing  in  the 
varying  colors  its  real  elements  and  its  diversified  richness  and  beauty. 

Therefore  the  only  true  philosophy  is  that  which  germinates  from 
the  entire  constitution  of  man  and  grows  with  the  normal  growth  of  his 
entire  life.  This  is  the  only  philosophy  which  can  safely  be  the  guide 
of  life.  A  French  writer  has  said  regretfully,  "  There  is  in  each  of 
us  a  poet  that  died  young."  It  is  the  characteristic  of  genius  that  this 
inborn  poet  lives  the  whole  life  long  with  all  the  dewy  freshness  of 
youth.  It  is  the  characteristic  of  Christianity  that  passing  through  the 
intellect  it  quickens  and  keeps  fresh  all  the  purest  and  most  beautiful 
sentiments  of  humanity,  all  that  is  noblest  and  most  divine  in  the  spi. 
ritual  life,  so  that  always  in  the  freshness  of  spiritual  youth,  "  as  little 
children  "  we  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God. 

2.  Errors  also  arise  from  identifying  knowing,  feeling  and  willing, 
or  obscuring  the  difference  between  them.  These  errors  do  not  arise  so 
much  from  definite  denials  of  the  difference,  as  from  admissions  or  at- 
tempted explanations  or  lines  of  thought  and  argument  which  imply 
that  there  is  no  difference.  Such,  for  example,  is  the  assertion  that 
choice  is  a  judgment  of  the  intellect;  and  such  is  the  use  of  the  popular 
saying,  that  feeling  is  a  kind  of  knowing,  as  if  it  were  a  philosophical 
definition. 

In  respect  to  errors  of  this  class  two  points  must  be  noticed.  The 
first  point  is  that  in  cases  of  which  we  say  the  feeling  is  the  knowing, 
there  is  a  belief  or  knowledge  present  with  the  feeling.  If  fear  moves 
a  man  to  run  away  from  a  tiger,  the  fear  involves  a  belief  or  know- 
ledge that  the  tiger  is  a  dangerous  beast.  If  a  pure  woman  is  driven 
by  her  feelings  away  from  impurity,  she  knows  what  impurity  is  and 
knows  that  she  has  come  near  it.  And  the  knowledge  in  these  cases  is 
just  as  different  from  the  feeling  as  if  it  were  separated  Jrom  it  by  some 
hours.  In  all  these  cases  the  knowiedge,  in  the  order  of  dependence 
and  thought,  is  presupposed  in  the  feeling.  How  can  one  fear  if  he  has 
no  knowledge  of  danger?  It  is  only  in  instinct  that  the  feeling  and 
action  precede  the  knowledge.  And  evolutionists  suppose  that  in  in- 
stinct the  knowledge  originally  preceded  the  feeling  and  action,  but  by 
heredity  through  many  generations  the  knowledge  or  belief  has  become 
merged  and  lost  in  the  feeling. 

The  other  point  to  be  noticed  is  that  feeling  and  willing  cannot  in 
themselves  be  ultimate  criteria. of  knowledge.  If  one  person  lives  for 
sensual  gratification  and  another  for  the  service  of  God  and  man  in 
obedience  to  the  law  of  love,  their  respective  feelings  wrill  lead  them  to 
different  lines  of  conduct,  to  different  views  of  life  and  to  different 
opinions.  Feeling  may  guide  to  right  action,  and  opinions  founded  on 


UNIVERSITY 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  AGNOSTI 


feeling  and  character  may  be  right, 
feelings  and  the  character  are  right.  Any  testing  of  opinions  by  their 
conformity  with  our  own  feelings  and  character  necessarily  presupposes 
knowledge  of  what  feeling  is  right  and  what  is  wrong.  And,  further, 
the  very  act  of  testing  an  opinion  in  this  way  is  an  act  of  thought,  and 
not  a  feeling;  the  comparing  of  character  and  feelings  and  judging 
which  is  right  is  an  intellectual  act;  and  the  standard  of  judgment 
between  right  and  wrong  is  the  truth  and  law  of  reason,  and  is  not  in 
the  feelings. 

III.  Feeling  and  willing  may  be  used,  with  the  qualifications  just 
mentioned,  in  testing  the  reality  of  knowledge  in  general,  and  in  veri- 
fying particular  beliefs. 

1.  Oar  feelings,  choices  and  volitions,  the  whole  practical  side  of  our 
constitution  protest  against  agnosticism  as  really  and  effectively  as  do 
our  reason  and  our  knowledge.  Mr.  Spencer's  doctrine  that  the  abso- 
lute being,  the  ultimate  ground  and  deepest  reality  of  the  universe,  is 
unknowable,  is  contradictory  to  reason  and  knowledge.  If  the  true 
and  ultimate  reality  is  unknowable  all  reality  is  unknowable ;  what  we 
take  for  reality  is  merely  phenomenon,  and  what  we  take  for  know- 
ledge is  merely  illusion.  Mr.  Spencer  himself  contradicts  his  own 
agnosticism  by  declaring  his  knowledge  of  the  unknowable ;  for  he 
declares  that  the  Unknowable  ground  and  reality  of  phenomena  is 
absolute  being,  exists,  is  power,  is  everywhere  present,  and  is  mani- 
fested in  all  the  ongoing  of  the  universe.  To  the  agnostic,  belief  in  the 
existence  of  an  unknowable  absolute  as  the  ultimate  ground  and 
reality  is  self-contradictory ;  even  a  genius  like  Herbert  Spencer  cannot 
enunciate  the  doctrine  without  contradicting  himself.  And  if  the  Ab- 
solute Reality  is  unknowable  all  reality  is  unknowable  and  knowledge 
is  impossible. 

This  agnosticism  is  equally  contradictory  to  the  rational  constitution 
of  man  on  its  practical  side.  To  say  that  the  ultimate  reality  of.  things 
is  unknowable,  and  yet  to  insist  that  it  ought  to  be  the  object  of  rever- 
ence and  even  of  religious  homage  and  that  we  ought  willingly  to  order 
our  actions  in  cooperation  with  the  manifestation  of  the  unknowable  as 
it  reveals  itself  in  the  evolution  of  the  universe,  is  certainly  absurd. 
We  are  told  that  religion  is  legitimate  in  the  sphere  of  feeling  and  that 
imagination  may  picture  the  unknowable,  in  whatever  form  it  will,  as 
an  object  of  worship.  But  can  a  sane  man  revere  and  love  and  serve 
what  is  unknown  and  unknowable?  Especially  can  he  worship  what  he 
knows  is  a  fiction  of  his  own  imagination  and  revere  it  as  the  Absolute 
Being?  So  also  Hamilton  and  Mansel  declare  that  the  Absolute  is 
unknowable,  that  what  is  knowledge  and  truth  and  right  and  love  to 
us  may  not  be  knowledge,  truth,  right  and  love  to  God;  and  yet  that 


36  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

we  ought  to  love,  adore  and  serve  him.  The  doctrine  contradicts  both 
the  pure  or  speculative  Keason  and  the  practical.  It  is  alike  absurd 
and  immoral.  If  that,  which  is  most  real  in  the  universe  and  is  the 
ground  of  all  that  is,  may  be  unreason  and  not  reason,  may  be  the  con- 
trary of  all  which  we  know  as  true,  right,  perfect  and  good,  may  be 
the  antagonist  of  all  which  human  reason  approves  as  the  objects  of 
our  highest  aspirations,  our  best  affections  a"nd  our  noblest  endeavors, 
then  our  whole  moral  and  practical  nature  not  less  than  our  rational  is 
an  abortion  and  a  lie.  Man  has  no  scope  for  his  aspirations,  affections 
and  powers.  "Vanity  of  vanities,  all  is  vanity"  becomes  the  only  true 
account  of  human  existence.  No  philosophy  or  science  which  involves 
this  can  ever  gain  wide  or  permanent  control  of  the  mind  of  man. 

2.  The  practical  side  of  our  being  also  implies  objective   reality. 
Fear,  joy,  pity,  anger  imply  an  object  of  fear,  joy,  pity  and  anger.     If 
these  feelings  are  purely  subjective  the  feelings  themselves  cannot  exist. 
In  an  important  sense  we  perceive  objective  reality  through  all  the 
feelings  as  really   as   through   sensation.     Our  feelings  are  a  sort  of 
reaction  on  the  outward  object.     A  philosophy  which  denies  that  the 
feelings  imply  objective  reality,  would  deny  that  our.  feelings  have  any 
relevancy  to  the  world  in  which  we  live  and  thus  would  annihilate  all 
motives.     Such  a  philosophy  cannot  be  believed. 

It  is  equally  true  that  choice  and  volition  imply  objective  reality. 
All  enterprise  and  energy  assume  the  reality  of  the  universe  as  the 
sphere  of  action,  and  of  the  objects  sought  by  enterprise  and  energy. 
The  man  striving  with  all  his  might  to  remove  an  obstacle,  to  over- 
come an  enemy,  to  gain  house  and  land  cannot  doubt  the  reality  of  the 
objects.  A  philosophy  which  denies  the  objective  reality  of  things  is 
as  fatal  to  all  energy  as  it  is  to  all  knowledge.  Man  cannot  believe  it. 
Man  is  a  part  of  the  universe.  It  acts  on  him  and  he  reacts  on  it,  not 
in  his  intellect  alone,  but  also  in  his  feelings  and  his  will.  And  this 
reaction,  whether  in  knowledge,  feeling,  choice  or  exertion,  is  always 
attesting  the  reality  of  its  object. 

3.  And  since  we  are  so  constituted  that  we  judge  some  feelings,  aims 
and  actions  to  be  worthy  and  noble  and  others  unworthy  and  ignoble, 
a  true  philosophy  must  teach  that  the  universe  gives  scope  to  our  in- 
tensest  action  for  the  realization  of  our  highest  aspirations  and  our 
noblest  ends.     A  philosophy  which  denies  this  is  Pessimism ;  it  denies 
that  life  is  worth  living ;  it  declares  that  the  universe  gives  no  scope 
for  feeling,  or  action  or  achievement  of  any  worth.     The  Eeason,  the 
Feelings,  the  Will  revolt  from  it.     The  truth  of  opinions  is  tested  by 
their  bearing  on  action  and  character,  their  teachings  as  to  what  are 
the  highest  ends  of  human  life,  and  their  power  to  quicken  and  guide 
to  the  realization  of  those  ends. 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  AGNOSTICISM.  37 

And  the  practical  side  of  humanity  also  attests  the  reality  of  man's 
spiritual  being  and  of  the  objects  of  his  highest  aspirations  and  en- 
deavor. For  men  live  but  a  little  time.  If  the  universe  is  to  give 
realization  to  their  highest  hopes,  satisfaction  to  what  is  best  in  their 
affections,  scope  for  their  noblest  endeavors,  their  lives  must  be  more 
than  "  little  breezes  "  which 

"dusk  and  shiver 
Through  the  wave  that  runs  forever ;  " 

they  must  be  immortal.  And  this  practical  attestation  of  the  reality  of 
the  spiritual  is  precisely  the  same  in  kind  with  the  practical  attestation 
of  the  physical,  which  in  fact  compels  the  belief  in  its  objective  reality. 
Man  perceives  the  reality  both  of  the  spiritual  and  the  physical  through 
his  feelings,  choices,  volitions  and  exertions  as  really  as  he  perceives 
outward  reality  through  the  senses.  There  is  a  true  and  profound  phi- 
losophy in  one  of  the  "preliminary  principles"  of  the  Presbyterian 
"  Form  of  Government ; "  "  Truth  is  in  order  to  goodness ;  and  the 
great  touchstone  of  truth  is  its  tendency  to  promote  holiness,  according 
to  our  Saviour's  rule,  '  by  their  fruits  shall  ye  know  them.'  There 
is  an  inseparable  connection  between  faith  and  practice,  truth  and 
duty.  "*  Some  scientists  teach  that,  as  the  inevitable  result  of  evolu- 
tion, the  whole  universe  will  come  to  a  stop  and  all  life  and  motion 
forever  cease.  .Our  whole  being  revolts  against,  resents  and  resists  the 
conclusion.  In  accordance  with  the  foregoing  principles  the  impossi- 
bility of  this  belief  and  the  revolt  and  resentment  of  the  heart  against 
it  are  founded  in  a  true  philosophy.  It  is  safe  to  predict  that  any 
theory  which  necessarily  involves  this  conclusion  will  never  gain  cur- 
rency among  men.  In  like  manner,  when  we  are  told  that  the  universe 
gives  no  scope  for  the  realization  of  our  spiritual  aspirations  and  that 
the  objects  of  them  have  no  reality,  that  our  endeavors  to  attain  the 
noblest  ends  of  our  being  must  be  abortive,  and  that  the  progress  of 
science  is  destined  to  chill  and  still  all  such  aspirations  and  endeavors 
forever,  our  whole  being  revolts  against,  resents  and  resists  the  conclu- 
sion. And  this  revolt  and  resistance  also  are  justified  by  true  philo- 
sophy ;  and  we  may  safely  predict  that  a  theory  involving  such  a 
conclusion  will  never  control  the  action  and  history  of  mankind. 

4.  The  greater  part  of  human  actions  are  acts  of  faith.  In  every  en- 
terprize  a  man  risks  something  of  the  present  to  win  something  in  the 
future.  He  does  it  in  faith  that  events  will  be  according  to  his  calcu- 
lations. If  he  succeeds  he  knows  that  his  calculations  were  according 
to  the  realities  of  the  universe ;  that  is,  according  to  truth  ;  for  truth  is 
reality  intellectually  apprehended.  If  he  fails,  he  knows  that  he  was 

*  Constitution  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  U.  S.  A.  p.  344. 


38  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL   BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

in  error.  In  either  case  by  his  voluntary  action  he  acquires  knowledge 
of  reality.  And  in  this  way  a  great  part  of  human  knowledge  is 
acquired. 

But  a  man  may  aim  at  unworthy  ends.  The  universe  makes  both 
good  and  evil  possible  to  him.  If  now  he  can  ascertain  any  principles 
determining  what  are  the  highest  possibilities  of  his  being,  those  princi- 
ples must  be  true  ;  because  those  highest  possibilities  are  what  the  uni- 
verse itself  makes  possible  to  him  in  his  reaction  on  it. 

Man  is  so  constituted  that  principles  of  action  present  themselves  in 
his  consciousness  as  regulative  of  his  thinking,  and  feeling  and  will- 
ing. He  distinguishes  the  reasonable  from  the  absurd,  the  true  from 
the  false,  the  right  from  the  wrong,  the  perfect  from  the  imperfect,  the 
worthy  from  the  unworthy.  In  the  true,  the  right,  the  perfect  and  the 
worthy  he  recognizes  the  highest  possibility  and  supreme  good  of  his 
being.  In  reference  to  these  there  are  problems  which  thrust  themselves 
for  solution  on  every  generation,  questions  which  every  age  must  answer. 
Are  the  highest  possibilities  and  noblest  ends  of  human  life  attained  by 
acting  in  supreme  selfishness  or  in  universal  love  ?  by  lives  of  self-indul- 
gence and  ease  and  being  ministered  unto  or  by  lives  of  energy  and 
service?  by  lives  conformed  to  the  negations  of  materialism  or  to  the 
large  and  positive  principles,  promises  and  hopes  of  Christianity  ?  These 
are  legitimate  criteria  of  knowledge.  The  materialist  appeals  to  these 
and  similar  criteria  as  constantly  and  as  earnestly  as  the  theist.  By 
these  criteria  the  experience  of  the  race  is  establishing  the  supremacy 
of  the  law  of  love  and  the  reality  of  man's  spiritual  interests  and  rela- 
tions. Christianity  has  already  advanced  far  in  proving  itself  true  by 
its  effects.  When  in  the  lapse  of  time  its  principles  are  all  realized  and 
its  promises  fulfilled  in  the  civilization  of  mankind,  the  demonstration 
will  be  complete. 

IV.  The  errors  and  superficiality  of  skeptical  and  materialistic  scien- 
tists rest  largely  on  their  disregarding  the  real  relations  of  knowing, 
feeling  and  willing  and  attempting  to  construct  a  science  of  the  uni- 
verse as  if  it  were  an  object  of  thought  alone. 

1.  It  is  this  which  leads  them  to  reject,  in  theory,  all  argument  from 
final  causes.  I  say  in  theory ;  because  in  fact  they  habitually  use  it  in 
their  scientific  investigations. 

Man's  knowledge  in  all  departments  is  closely  connected  with  the 
satisfaction  of  his  feelings  and'  the  accomplishment  of  his  purposes. 
He  accepts  the  statements  of  fact  and  method  accordance  with  which 
enables  him  to  accomplish  his  designs.  He  accepts  as  true  the  princi- 
ples which  enable  him  to  realize  what  both  the  reason  and  experience 
of  man  pronounce  right,  and  perfect  and  of  true  worth.  The  practical 
Reason  is  as  real  a  factor  in  his  knowledge  as  the  Speculative.  The 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  AGNOSTICISM.  39 

recognition  of  final  causes  is  in  the  essence  of  his  knowledge,  as  really 
as  the  recognition  of  efficient  causes.  Nor  does  the  knowledge  of  the 
efficient,  preclude  the  reality  of  the  final  cause.  Some  unmusical  per- 
s6n  once  described  the  playing  of  a  great  violinist  as  scraping  catgut 
with  horse-hair.  It  is  a  correct  description.  But  it  would  be  foolish 
to  insist  that  this  physical  force  and  its  instruments  are  all  that  science 
can  recognize  in  the  performance,  and  that  it  knows  nothing  of  it  as 
the  intentional  production  of  enchanting  music.  As  Bulwer  says: 
"  Science  is  not  a  club-room ;  it  is  an  ocean ;  it  is  as  open  to  the  cock- 
boat as  to  the  frigate.  One  man  carries  across  it  a  freightage  of  ingots 
and  another  may  fish  there  for  herrings.  Who  can  exhaust  the  sea? 
Why  say  to  the  intellect,  'The  deeps  of  philosophy  are  pre-occupied?'" 

2.  The  principles  which  have  been  presented  expose  the  error  that 
the  scientific  spirit  is  the  pure  love  of  the  truth,  defecated  from  all 
admixture  of  feeling,  preference  or  choice.  Of  the  love  of  the  truth  in 
this  sense  Mr.  Lecky  says  that  it  "  is  perhaps  the  highest  attribute  of 
humanity;"  that  they  who  possess  it  "will  invariably  come  to  value 
such  a  disposition  more  than  any  particular  doctrines  to  which  it  may 
lead  them ;  they  will  deny  the  necessity  of  correct  opinions ; "  that  is, 
love  of  the  truth  will  entirely  cease,  being  displaced  by  love  for  a  cer- 
tain disposition  or  feeling;  love  of  the  truth  will  be  displaced  by  love 
for  the  love  of  the  truth.  Mr.  Lecky  goes  so  far  as  to  insist  that  chil- 
dren ought  not  to  be  religiously  trained  lest  it  should  prejudice  them. 
This  would  equally  imply  that  the  child  ought  not  to  be  trained  to 
virtue,  since  this  training  also  implies  doctrine.  The  necessary  infer- 
ence would  be  that  a  child  must  not  be  taught  to  love  God  and  his 
neighbor  lest  he  should  be  biased  and  prejudiced.  Professor  Huxley 
characterizes  a  religious  belief  founded  on  the  spiritual  aspirations  and 
needs  of  the  soul  as  immoral.  Prof.  Clifford,  in  his  essay  on  the  "  Eth- 
ics of  belief,"  says  that  to  believe  even  the  truth  without  scientific 
investigation  and  evidence  is  morally  wrong  and  incurs  guilt ;  and  that 
if  a  busy  man  has  not  time  to  investigate  he  must  not  believe.  But  a 
large  part  of  human  actions  are  ventures  on  beliefs  which  have  not 
scientific  evidence,  in  the  sense  in  which  Prof.  Clifford  uses  the  phrase, 
and  which  nevertheless  are  beliefs  so  decisive  that  men  venture  on 
them  property,  reputation  and  even  life.-  Would  the  professor  call  all 
these  acts  sin  and  say  that  the  actors  incur  guilt ;  that  is,  that  they  de- 
serve punishment? 

In  this  conception  of  the  love  of  the  truth  the  mistake  of  our  modern 
illuminati  is  that  they  conceive  of  man  as  divided  against  himself;  they 
isolate  the  intellect  from  all  the  other  constituents  of  humanity.  They 
do  not  join  with  crass  practical  materialism  in  saying  that  man  liveth 
by  bread  alone.  Their  maxim  is,  rather,  that  man  liveth  by  intellect 


40  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

alone.  The  feelings  and  the  will,  all  that  belongs  to  moral  character 
and  practical  activity  and  interests  are  conceived  as  in  antagonism  to 
the  right  action  of  the  intellect ;  and  this  antagonism  is  conceived  as 
man's  normal  state.  Hence  the  only  security  for  the  intellect  in  its 
search  after  and  knowledge  of  the  truth  is  its  complete  isolation  and 
protection  from  its  natural  enemies,  the  feelings  and  the  will,  the  moral 
character  and  the  interest  in  the  practical  activities  of  life.  In  order 
to  the  successful  use  of  the  intellect  our  modern  ill  ami  u  ism  requires  the 
student  to  unman  himself;  to  divest  himself  of  all  feeling  and  char- 
acter, of  all  choice  or  preference,  even  of  the  preference  for  right 
rather  than  wrong,  or  for  enjoyment  rather  than  misery,  of  all,  in  fact, 
which  moves  him  to  action  and  makes  him  capable  of  achievement, 
which  makes  him  of  any  use  or  his  life  of  any  worth  to  himself  or 
others.  Plainly  this  can  only  lead  to  agnosticism  and  not  to  the  know- 
ledge of  the  truth ;  for  it  assumes  that  falsity  is  organized  into  the  very 
constitution  of  man. 

The  real  condition  of  discovering  the  truth  is  just  the  contrary.  It  is 
not  the  isolation  of  the  intellect  from  the  feelings,  choices  and  volitions, 
but  it  is  the  harmony  of  intellect,  feeling  and  will  in  the  complete  de- 
velopment of  the  man  in  the  unity  of  his  being  to  the  realization  of  the 
rational  and  normal  standards  of  truth  and  right,  of  perfection  and 
worth.  Eight  feeling  and  character  must  be  in  harmony  with  the 
knowledge  of  the  truth  and  helpful  to  its  attainment.  It  is  not  feeling, 
choice,  purpose,  determination  which  bias  men  against  the  knowledge  of 
the  truth ;  it  is  only  wrong  feeling,  choice,  purpose  and  determina- 
tion. 

In  the  very  definition  of  the  love  of  the  truth,  as  conceived  by  our 
illuminati,  are  obvious  inconsistencies.  They  push  the  analysis  of  men- 
tal processes  so  far  that  they  seem  to  regard  them  not  only  as  separate 
faculties  or  organs,  but  as  separate  entities  in  conflict  with  each  other. 
In  insisting  that  the  love  of  the  truth  must  be  defecated  from  feeling, 
choice  and  purpose,  they  contemplate  truth  as  an  entity  existing  isolated 
from  all  relation  to  human  interests.  But  this  is  to  say  that  the  uni- 
verse itself  has  no  relation  to  human  interests;-  for  truth  is  the  reality 
of  the  universe  intellectually  apprehended.  As  such  it  has  powerful 
and  constant  influence  on  human  interests.  The  very  conception  of 
seeking  truth  isolated  from  human  interests  is  itself  falsehood.  The 
supposed  isolated  truth,  if  discovered,  would  not  be  the  truth,  would  not 
be  the  reality  of  the  universe  apprehended  in  the  mind ;  it  would  be 
unreality  and  falsehood.  At  best  it  could  be  only  a  partial  and  one- 
sided apprehension  of  reality.  The  definition  involves  another  incon- 
sistency. The  love  of  the  truth  itself  involves  feeling ;  seeking  to  know 
truth  under  its  influence,  is  seeking  under  the  influence  of  a  feeling.  It 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  AGNOSTICISM.  41 

may  mislead  to  disregard  moral  duty  and  culture  and  all  the  truth  in- 
volved therein ;  which  would  be  as  real  a  bias  misleading  away  from 
truth,  as  the  moral  feelings  themselves  can  be. 

Tliis  conception  of  the  love  of  the  truth  reveals  its  insufficiency  and 
erroneousness  also  in  its  practical  development.  There  is  a  common 
impression  that  men  devoted  to  study  are  weak  in  practical  affairs.  So 
far  as  this  is  the  necessary  result  of  confinement  to  a  particular  line  of 
work  it  is  no  disparagement  to  the  scholar ;  as  it  is  no  disparagement 
to  a  lawyer  that  he  does  not  understand  medicine.  But  if  study  is 
prosecuted  with  only  a  speculative  interest  there  is  a  weakness  of  the 
man  and  not  merely  a  necessary  professional  limitation;  for  his  de- 
velopment is  abnormal,  his  culture  sickly,  and  his  knowledge  awry. 

One  result  is  that  his  interest  is  concentrated  on  the  inquiry,  not  on 
the  truth ;  he  studies  for  the  enjoyment  of  his  own  intellectual  acti- 
vity. This  is  the  purport  of  Lessing's  famous  saying :  "  If  God  held  in 
his  right  hand  all  truth,  and  in  his  left  hand  the  single  always  urgent 
impulse  to  search  after  truth  with  the  condition  that  I  be  always  and , 
forever  in  error,  and  should  say  to  me,  Choose,  I  should  humbly  turn 
to  his  left  hand  and  say,  Father,  give  me  this ;  the  pure  truth  is  for 
thee  alone."*  This  saying  has  been  repeated  by  many  in  different 
forms  as  expressing  the  true  scholarly  spirit ;  and  Hamilton  approves 
it  as  expressing  the  true  end  and  value  of  philosophical  investiga- 
tion. But  it  certainly  does  not  express  the  love  of  truth.  On  the 
contrary  it  declares  that  love  of  truth  is  entirely  displaced  by  the  en- 
joyment of  intellectual  activity.  And  what  a  picture  is  this  of  the  life 
of  a  student — a  life  of  amusement  only.  For  what  is  the  difference  be- 
tween spending  life  in  hunting  the  truth  or  in  hunting  foxes,  if  the  truth 
is  no  more  valued  than  the  fox,  and  in  each  case  the  sole  end  is  the  en- 
joyment of  the  exercise?  Hence  comes  dilettanteism,  a  mere  amusing 
one's  self  with  literature,  art  or  science  hi  entire  indifference  to  truth 
and  to  its  applications  to  the  regulation  of  life.  Hence  hypercriti- 
cism  and  fastidiousness,  a  languid  and  luxurious  disposition  to  get  the 
most  enjoyment  possible  out  of  life,  and  yet  a  fastidiousness  which  can 
find  nothing  to  enjoy.  Hence  the  tendency,  which  appeared  in  the 
decline  of  the  Roman  empire,  to  long  and  arid  controversies  on  barren 
questions.  Epictetus  ridicules  a  question  much  discussed  in  his  day. 
It  was  this :  "  If  a  man  says  of  himself,  '  I  lie,'  does  he  lie,  or  does  he 
tell  the  truth?  If  he  lies  he  tells  the  truth;  but  if  he  tells  the  truth 
he  lies."  Chrysippus  wrote  a  treatise  on  this  question,  entitled  the 
"  Pseudomenos "  in  six  books,  said  to  have  been  famous  in  its  day.  f 
Another  tendency  is  to  Skepticism  as  the  ultimate  issue  of  all  intel- 

*  AVerke :  Vol.  x.  pp.  49,  50.     Ed.  Berlin,  1839.     Eine  Duplik. 
f  Epictetus ;  Discourses,  B.  ii.  chap.  17. 


42  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL   BASIS  OF   THEISM. 

lectual  endeavor ;  a  perpetual  inquiring,  "  ever  learning  and  never  able 
to  come  to  the  knowledge  of  the  truth."  The  whole  significance  of  life 
comes  to  be  expressed  in  an  interrogation  point.  Sterling  and  James 
Blanco  White  were  examples;  seeking  a  faith  and  never  finding  it; 
passing  from  one  faith  to  another  in  perpetual  unrest,  like  a  man  lost 
in  a  Dismal  Swamp,  leaping  from  one  quaking  turf  to  another  till  he 
sinks  in  the  suffocating  quagmire — a  life  of  intense  activity  but  of  no 
achievement — the  whole  energy  spent  in  seeking  a  place  to  stand. 
Another  result  is  indifference  to  truth  both  in  itself  and  in  its  bearing 
on  human  welfare.  Underlying  this  false  conception  of  the  love  of  the 
truth  is  the  assumption  that  truth  cannot  be  known ;  that  all  opinions 
must  be  held  as  doubtful ;  that  the  scientific  spirit  requires  that  we 
must  be  indifferent  to  what  we  hold  as  truth  and  always  ready  to  receive 
its  contrary.  This  precludes  the  conception  of  any  principle  believed,  to 
which  the  will  consents  in  allegiance,  by  which  the  man  regulates  his 
life,  and  for  which  he  would  willingly  die.  Paul  must  meet  the  Athe- 
nians on  Mars'  Hill  as  ready  to  believe  in  Jupiter  as  in  Christ.  One 
writer  has  taught  that  the  existence  of  a  revelation  from  God  of  princi- 
ples true  for  all  time  would  be  incompatible  with  human  progress. 
Another  has  expressed  doubts  whether  ever  a  martyr  for  truth  acted 
wisely.  All  such  representations  imply  that  truth  cannot  be  known ; 
that  the  deepest  principles  on  which  human  knowledge  depends  may  in 
the  future  be  found  false ;  that  everything  is  uncertain.  Thus  this 
theory  of  the  love  of  the  truth  is  in  its  essence  agnosticism. 

While  this  theory  reveals  its  insufficiency  and  erroneousness  in  its 
practical  development,  it  is  disproved  also  by  the  fact  that  all  great 
epochs  of  human  progress  have  been  characterized  and  carried  forward 
by  the  presentation  of  truth  in  its  practical  bearing  on  life,  and  with 
glowing  feeling  and  steadfast  purpose  on  the  part  of  those  who  have 
been  agents  in  the  progress.  Their  love  to  the  truth  has  not  been 
defecated  from  all  feeling  nor  sublimated  into  indifference.  They  have 
loved  the  truth  in  the  sense  that  with  all  the  powers  of  their  being  they 
lived  for  it  and  if  necessary  were  ready  to  die  for  it.  Freedom  of 
inquiry  is  a  condition  of  progress ;  but  it  is  only  a  condition,  never  the 
power  by  which  the  progress  is  effected.  Noble  characters  are  formed 
and  great  deeds  done,  not  by  inquiring  after  truth,  but  by  believing  it 
and  acting  on  it. 

The  great  change  wrought  by  Lord  Bacon  in  physical  science  itself 
was  not  effected  by  his  teaching  men  to  reason  by  induction.  Men 
have  always  reasoned  by  induction  as  well  as  by  deduction.  But  Lord 
Bacon  wrought  the  great  reformation  in  science  by  calling  men  off 
from  merely  speculative  inquiries,  such  as  occupied  the  mediaeval  schol- 
astics, to  investigations  bearing  directly  on  the  welfare  of  man. 


KNOWLEDGE  AND   AGNOSTICISM.  43 

3.  A  right  moral  character  and  a  devout  and   reverential   spirit, 
instead  of  being  hindrances  to  the  investigation  of  truth,  are  essential 
to  the  condition  of  mind  most  favorable  to  such  investigation.     They 
are  component  elements  of  a  true  scientific  spirit.     This  is  so  because 
they  are  essential  to  the  wholeness  and  harmony  of  man's  development. 
These  are  helpful  in  the  study  of  physical  science.     They  are  indispen- 
sable in  the  investigation  of  moral  and  religious  truth.     The  greater 
the  purity,  delicacy  and  earnestness  of  the  moral  and  religious  life,  the 
greater  the  fitness  to  appreciate  moral  and  religious  truth.     A  cleanly 
person  is  a  better  judge  of  what  cleanliness  is  than  a  savage  hi  the  filth 
of  his  wigwam  or  an  old  monk  who  has  always  religiously  abstained 
from  washing.     A  pure  woman  is  a  better  judge  of  moral  purity  than 
a  rotten  debauchee.     A  mean  man  is  a  poor  judge  of  what  is  honorable 
and  a  swindler  of  what  is  honest.     It  is  the  same  in  religion.     Paul 
and  John  are  better  judges  of  religious  truth  and  its  evidence  than 
Simon  Magus  or  Pontius  Pilate.     This  is  the  philosophy  of  the  New 
Testament:  "The  pure  in  heart  see  God;"  "Except  a  man  be  born 
again  he  cannot  see  the  kingdom  of  God."     Pride,  selfishness,  sensu- 
ality, the  heart  of  sin  blind  the  mind  to  religious  truth.     To  such  a 
man  religious  truth  is  foolishness,  and  the  whole  Christian  life  unintel- 
ligible.    But  as  Schelling  truly  says:    "To  remain  unintelligible  to 
such  an  one  is  glory  and  honor  before  God  and  man.     Barbarus  huic 
ego  sirn  nee  tali  intelligar  ulli."  * 

4.  The  doctrine  which  I  have  been  presenting  is  accordant  with  the 
familiar  fact  that  knowledge  and  culture  are  advanced  indirectly  by  the 
growth  and  development  of  the  man,  quite  as  much  as  by  direct  study, 
argument  and  examination  of  evidence.     Obscurities  which  by  dint  of 
thought  we  once  could  not  make  clear,  difficulties  and  objections  which 
we  could  not  argue  down,  we  find,  in  later  years,  to  be  obscurities,  diffi- 
culties and  objections  no  longer.     It  has  come  to  pass  as  the  result  of 
growth.     If  all  knowledge   must  come  by  direct  intellectual  effort, 
isolated  from  feeling  and  willing,  this  result  would  be  impossible.     But 
because  knowing,  feeling  and  willing  are  inseparable  in  the  unity  of  the 
person,  the  growth  and  development  of  the  person  insure  an  advance  in 
knowledge  and  intellectual  insight. 

*  Idealismus  der  Wissenschaftslehre ;  Sammtliche  Werke,  I.  433. 


CHAPTER  III. 
THE  ACTS  AND   PKOCESSES  OF   KNOWING. 


§  9.    Classification. 

THE  powers  of  the  mind  are  commonly  considered  in  three  general 
classes : — Intellect,  the  mind  considered  as  intelligent  or  capable  of  know- 
ing ;  Sensibility  or  Feeling,  the  mind  considered  as  susceptible  of  motives 
and  emotions ;  Will,  the  mind  considered  as  self-determining. 

The  acts  and  processes  of  knowing  may  be  considered  in  three 
classes: — Intuition,  Representation,  and  Reflection  or  Thought.  All 
knowledge  arises  in  Intuition,  or  in  Representation,  or  in  a  process  of 
Thought. 

I.  I  speak  of  powers  or  faculties  merely  as  a  matter  of  convenience, 
to  denote  the  mind  itself  considered  as  capable  of  various  acts  or  states. 
This  is  well  put  by  Lotze,  who  says,  in  substance,  that  for  the  whole  of 
every  circle  of  similar  phenomena  we  ascribe  to  the  soul  a  peculiar 
faculty  or  capacity  to  act  in  a  way  which  proves  it  competent  to  the  ac- 
tion in  each  circle  of  phenomena.     As  many  as  are  the  distinct  groups 
of  acts  which  come  under  our  observation,  so  many  distinct  faculties  for 
the  soul  must  we  assume — but  not  a  distinct  number  of  qualities  laid  out 
adjacent  to  one  another  and  imprinted  on  its  nature,  but  so  in  affinity 
with  each  other  that  they  all  concur,  as  distinct  expressions  of  one  and 
the  same  being,  in  the  wholeness  of  its  rational  development.* 

II.  The  mind  is  active  in  knowing,  not  passive.     The  object  known 
does  not  imprint  itself  on  the  mind  in  a  state  of  passivity  as  tracks  are 
imprinted  in  mud.     Knowledge  is  an  action  of  the  mind.     All  know- 
ledge consists  in  knowing. 

III.  In  all  knowledge  the  element  of  intelligence  is.  contributed  by 
the  mind  itself.     In  perception  there  must  be. the  object  perceived,  the 
subject  perceiving,  and  the  perception.     The  perception  is  the  act  of 
the  mind ;  it  is  its  primitive  intelligence ;  it  is  the  intellectual  equiva- 
lent of  the  object  known  in  the  act  of  perceiving.     Every  inference  is 
an  act  of  the  intellect ;  and  the  intellect  can  draw  an  inference  only 
because,  by  virtue  of  the  constituent  elements  of  its  own  rationality,  it 

*  Mikrokosnms ;  vol.  i.  pp.  183,  184;  Book  II.  chap.  2. 

44 


THE  ACTS  AND   PROCESSES  OF  KNOWING.  45 

knows  principles  regulative  of  all  thought,  which  make  an  inference 
'iiing  possible.  Knowledge  without  any  element  of  intelli- 
gence contributed  by  the  mind  itself,  is  inconceivable  and  unthinkable ; 
the  words  are  without  meaning. 

It  is  objected  that  because  in  all  knowledge  the  element  of  intelli- 
gence is  contributed  by  the  mind  itself,  therefore  all  knowledge  is  sub- 
jective and  unreal  and  our  intellectual  faculties  untrustworthy.  This 
objection  is  mere  nonsense.  It  is  the  objection  that  knowledge  is  im- 
possible because  there  is  a  mind  that  knows;  or  that  knowledge  is  im- 
!e  because  it  is  knowledge.  In  other  words  it  demands  that  the 
definition  of  knowledge  must  include  the  denial  of  all  the  conditions 
which  make  knowledge  possible. 

IV.  Knowledge  cannot  ba  distinguished  from  knowledge  as  different 
in  kind,  but  only  as  differing  in  the  conditions  under  which  it  arises 
and  in  the  character  of  its  objects.  A  geometrical  demonstration  is  a 
process  of  thought;  but  the  process  consists  merely  hi  bringing  the 
different  elements  of  the  figure  successively  into  juxtaposition  before 
the  mind,  so  that  it  sees  the  relations  between  them.  AVhen  thus 
brought  before  the  mind,  the  knowledge  of  the  relations  springs  up 
clear  in  its  own  self-evidence.  The  process  is  a  passing  successively 
from  knowledge  to  knowledge.  Reasoning  could  never  establish  its 
conclusion,  were  it  not  for  this  always  inexplicable  act  of  knowing,  in 
which,  at  each  successive  step,  the  mind  knows  the  relations  of  things 
brought  together  before  it. 

g  1O.    fntuition   or  Primitive  Knowledge. 

I.  Intuition  or  primitive  knowledge  is  knowledge  which  is  imme- 
diate and  self-evident. 

It  is  immediate  in  the  sense  that  it  is  not  attained  through  the 
medium  either  of  a  representation,  or  of  any  process  of  thought.  It  is 
face-to-face  knowledge. 

It  is  self-evident;  it  needs  no  proof;  it  cannot  be  proved,  because 
nothing  can  be  adduced  in  proof  more  evident  than  the  intuition  itself. 

II.  Intuition   is  distinguished   as  presentative   or    perceptive,   and 
rational. 

1.  Presentative  or  perceptive  intuition  is  immediate  and  self-evident 
knowledge  of  some  particular  reality  in  some  particular  mode  of  ex- 
istence present  to  the  consciousness. 

This  includes  sense-perception  and  self-consciousness.  Sense-percep- 
tion is  intuitive  knowledge  of  external  objects  through  the  senses ;  it  is 
man's  intuitive  knowledge  of  his  environment. 

It  has  been  objected  that  sense-perception  is  not  immediate  know- 
ledge, because  it  is  through  the  senses.  It  may  be  replied  that  the 


46  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF   THEISM. 

objection  is  equally  valid  against  all  intuition,  since  all  mental  opera- 
tions involve  the  action  of  the  brain  and  nerve.  It  may  be  replied, 
further,  that  while  these  physical  changes  are  important  facts  of  physio- 
logy and  must  be  taken  into  account  in  any  complete  investigation  of 
mental  phenomena,  yet  man  has  no  consciousness  of  them  whatever, 
they  do  not  explain  the  facts  of  consciousness  nor  make  a  bridge  for 
thought  from  the  motions  of  matter  to  conscious  knowledge,  feeling  and 
determination.  On  the  other  hand,  these  states  of  consciousness  are 
real  and  well-known  facts,  distinct  from  the  physiological  processes. 
They  are  themselves  the  mental  phenomena  which  we  are  seeking  to 
understand.  They  are  distinctively  psychological  facts  and  must  be 
defined  and  discriminated  as  such.  Sense-perception  is  immediate 
knowledge,  in  the  sense  that  it  does  not  arise  through  the  medium  of 
any  other  psychological  act  or  process ;  it  is  not  attained  through  the 
medium  of  representation  or  of  a  process  of  thought. 

Self-consciousness  is  the  intuitive  knowledge  which  the  mind  has  of 
itself  in  its  own  operations.  Sense-perception  and  self-consciousness  are 
sometimes  designated  as  external  and  internal  perception. 

2.  Rational  intuition  is  the  immediate  and  self-evident  knowledge  of 
a  universal  truth  or  principle. 

It  is  not  asserted  that  the  truth  or  principle  is  universally  believed, 
but  that  it  is  universally  true ;  not  that  all  men  believe  it  everywhere 
and  always,  but  that  it  is  true  everywhere  and  always.  And  as  such  it 
asserts  itself  in  the  consciousness ;  it  must  be  so,  and  under  no  circum- 
stances or  conditions  can  it  be  thought  contrarywise. 

3.  Intuition  is  the  original  primitive  knowledge,  which  gives  the  ob- 
jects about  which  we  think  and  the  principles  which  regulate  all  think- 
ing. 

Presentative  intuition  gives  the  particular  realities  about  which  we 
think.  They  may  be  called  objects,  or  material  or  data  of  thought. 

Rational  intuition  gives  the  principles  which  regulate  all  thinking 
and  which  make  reasoning  and  inference  possible.  It  also  gives,  in  the 
knowledge  of  universal  truths,  material  or  data  for  thought  transcend- 
ing the  particular  realities  given  in  presentative  intuition  and  so  opens 
to  our  knowledge  the  supersensible,  the  personal  and  the  divine. 

4.  The  name  intuition  has  often  been  restricted  to  rational  intuition. 
It  is  more  properly  applied  both  to  this  and  to  the  presentative  intui- 
tion.     Both  are  alike  primitive,  immediate  and  self-evident  knowledge, 
and  therefore  ought  to  be  designated  by  the  same  name.     The  designa- 
tion of  all  primitive  knowledge  as  intuition  is  also  accordant  with  the 
etymology  of  the  word  and  with  the  usage  of  philosophical  writers  of 
the  highest  authority.     When  thus  designated  the  name  expresses  the 
common  quality  of  all  primitive  knowledge  and  emphasizes  the  truth 


THE  ACTS   AND  PROCESSES  OF   KNOWING.  47 

that  all  objections  against  rational  intuition  on  the  ground  that  it  is 
immediate  and  self-evident,  unproved  and  unprovable  knowledge,  are 
equally  valid  against  sense-perception  and  self-consciousness. 

III.  The  mind,  considered  as  capable  of  rational  intuition,  I  shall 
call  the  Keason.  Reason  as  thus  used  must  be  distinguished  from 
reasoning,  which  is  a  process  of  reflective  thought.  So  Plotinus  speaks 
of  "  the  transition  from  reason  to  reasoning."  * 

§  11.    Knowledge  by  Representation. 

Knowledge  by  representation  is  knowledge  of  a  reality  formerly  pre- 
sented. in  intuition  and  now  re-presented  in  a  mental  image  or  concept. 
The  mental  image  or  concept  is  called  a  re-presentation. 

When  these  mental  images  are  not  recognized  as  re-presentations  of 
realities  previously  presented,  they  are  known  merely  as  mental  images, 
and  are  the  objects  or  material  for  the  creations  of  imagination. 

The  recognition  of  a  mental  image  or  concept  as  a  re-presentation  of  a 
reality  previously  known,  is  memory.  Memory  is  the  power  of  repre- 
senting the  past  and  of  knowing  it  again  through  the  re-presenta- 
tion. 

Memory  is  self-evident  knowledge.  It  stands  independent  of  reason- 
ing in  its  own  self-evidence.  In  this  respect  it  agrees  with  presentative 
intuition.  It  differs  from  it  in  that  the  knowledge  is  not  immediate,  but 
through  a  representation.  It  presupposes  a  reality  formerly  known  in- 
tuitively, and  now  known  again  through  a  re-presentation. 

The  reality  of  knowledge  through  memory  is  essential  to  the  reality 
of  all  knowledge  which  rests  on  a  process  of  thought  or  involves  any 
lapse  of  time.  Without  it  observation  and  experiment  can  ascertain  no 
facts,  reasoning  can  reach  no  conclusion,  experience  can  accumulate  no 
knowledge  ;  for  the  knowledge  of  this  moment  would  vanish  irrecover- 
ably in  the  next. 

The  attempts  to  vindicate  the  trustworthiness  of  memory  otherwise 
than  as  giving  self-evident  knowledge  are  futile.  Mr.  Huxley  holds 
that  certainty  is  limited  to  the  present  consciousness.  Yet  he  says  that 
"  the  general  trustworthiness  of  memory  "  and  "  the  general  constancy 
of  the  order  of  nature  "  "  are  of  the  highest  practical  value,  inasmuch  as 
the  conclusions  logically  drawn  from  them  are  always  verified  by  expe- 
rience." f  He  argues  that  the  present  act  of  memory  may  be  trusted, 
because  in  past  experience  a  multitude  of  remembrances  have  been 
found  to  be  correct.  But  he  can  have  no  knowledge  of  any  past  re- 
membrance and  its  verification  except  the  knowledge  given  by  memory 


*  Merd/3a<Hf  cnr6  vov  it?  to-ytafiov;  quoted  by  John  Smith,  Select  Discourses;  Cam- 
bridge, 1673,  p.  94. 
f  Lay  Sermons,  p.  359. 


48  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS   OF  THEISM. 

itself.  He  cannot  know  in  a  single  instance  during  his  process  of  veri- 
fication what  he  is  verifying  nor  on  what  premises  his  logical  conclusion 
rests,  except  as  he  remembers.  How  can  an  intelligent  man  gravely 
propound  such  a  begging  of  the  question  as  argument,  and  claim  that 
he  is  scientific  ?  The  trustworthiness  of  memory  cannot  be  established 
by  experience,  since  it  is  itself  a  condition  of  the  possibility  of  experi- 
ence. 

James  Mill  explains  our  belief  of  memory  as  the  result  of  the  associ- 
ation of  ideas.  But  this  is  an  impossible  explanation?  A  visit  to  a 
house  in  which  I  once  dwelt  may  be  the  occasion  of  mental  images  of 
various  scenes  arising  in  my  mind ;  but  it  does  not  in  the  least  account 
for  my  knowledge  that  these  are  representations  of  scenes  in  my  past 
life.  Or  when  he  says  that  the  ideas  of  past  experience  are  irresistibly 
associated  with  the  idea  of  myself  experiencing  them,  and  this  irresisti- 
bleness  constitutes  belief,  in  this  statement  itself  he  assumes  a  know- 
ledge of  past  experience  and  of  myself  experiencing  it  as  already  exist- 
ing and  as  the  basis  of  the  entire  effect  attributed  to  the  association  of 
ideas. 

Physiology  explains  memory  by  "  the  organic  registration  of  the 
results  of  impressions  on  our  nervous  centres."  Whatever  is  present  in 
consciousness  is  attended  by  action  and  waste  of  nerve,  and  leaves 
behind  in  the  nerve  itself  a  trace,  which  Dr.  Maudsley  compares  to  a 
scar,  or  a  pit  left  by  small-pox.  *  This  implies  that  every  object  seen 
during  a  lifetime  leaves  a  trace  like  a  scar  on  the  retina  of  the  eye, 
that  these  innumerable  scars  imprinted  on  this  exceedingly  small 
surface  and  new  ones  momentarily  added,  are  distinct  and  without 
confusion,  and  that  each  one  remains  identified  with  the  object  Avhich 
originally  caused  it  and  ready  at  every  moment  to  represent  it  in 
consciousness  without  commingling  it  with  any  other.  This  explana- 
tion is  simply  inconceivable,  and  itself  needs  explaining  as  much  as 
the  fact  which  it  professes  to  explain.  And  the  difficulty  is  multiplied 
by  the  five  senses,  by  all  the  nerves  of  feeling  and  motion,  and  by  the 
several  parts  of  the  brain  if  the  theory  is  established  that  each  of  them 
has  its  special  function.  At  the  most,  physiology  can  only  describe  the 
physical  conditions  of  intellectual  action.  It  cannot  find  thought  and 
knowledge  in  the  structure  or  functions  of  the  nerves,  nor  explain 
them  by  molecular  motion,  or  by  the  traces  of  its  action  which  it  leaves. 

§  12.    Knowledge  through   Reflection  or  Thought. 

I.  Reflection  or  thought  is  the  reflex  action  of  the  intellect  attending 
to  the  reality  known  in  presentative  intuition,  and  apprehending,  dif- 
ferentiating and  integrating  it  under  the  regulation  of  the  principles 

*  Physiology  and  Pathology  of  the  Mind,  pp.  182,  183. 


THE  ACTS  AND   PROCESSES  OF  KNOWING.  49 

known  in  rational  intuition,  and  concluding  in  a  judgment.  Discrimi- 
nating or  distinguishing  may  be  used  as  synonymous  with  differentia- 
ting, and  comprehending  or  unifying  as  synonymous  with  integrating. 

1.  It  is  a  prerequisite  to  thought  that  both  the  reality  about  which 
we  think  and  the  principles  which  regulate  our  thinking  be  already 
given  in  intuition. 

2.  The  objects  of  thought  as  presented  in  intuition  are  indeterminate. 
They  lie  before  the  mind  in  their  reality,  differences  and  relations. 
But  they  lie  before  the  mind  as  indeterminate  or  nebulous  matter, 
present  to  the  consciousness  but  undefined. 

Neither  consciousness  nor  reason  gives  any  ground  for  the  theory  of 
Reid,  Kant  and  others  that  we  first  perceive  the  minima  visibilia,  and 
then  proceed  to  unite  them  in  thought,  the  mind  passing  from  one  to 
another  so  rapidly  that  the  transition  is  not  remembered ;  or  that  the 
object  perceived  is,  as  Kant  calls  it,  "  a  synthesis  of  intuitions,"  or  as 
J.  S.  Mill  calls  it,  "  a  group  of  sensations."  Every  intuitive  percep- 
tion, according  to  Kant,  being  contained  absolutely  in  one  moment,* 
can  be  only  a  perception  of  an  indivisible'  unit  of  extension  and  an 
indivisible  unit  of  time.  But  we  have  no  knowledge  of  an  indivisible 
unit  of  extension  or  of  time.  We  know  the  ego  as  the  indivisible  unit 
in  the  sphere  of  personality.  We  have  an  hypothesis  of  the  existence 
of  atoms  as  the  ultimate  indivisible  units  of  matter ;  but  these  atoms 
are  not  the  units  of  perception.  This  theory  of  successive  perceptions 
of  minima  has  no  warrant.  On  the  contrary  the  material  for  thought 
is  presented  by  intuition  in  an  undiscriminated  whole.  It  is  sometimes 
called  the  nebulous  matter  of  intuition.  The  primitive  knowledge  13 
often  associated  with  the  feelings ;  the  feelings  themselves  carry  know- 
ledge undiscriminated  and  unformulated  in  them.  In  the  intuition  all 
the  elements  of  the  reality  are  presented  to  the  consciousness  in  solu- 
tion ;  it  is  only  at  the  touch  of  reflective  thought  that  the  solution  crys- 
tallizes and  all  its  parts  stand  out  distinctly  and  in  order.  In  the 
nebulous,  unelaborated  matter  of  intuition  the  mind  by  reflection  notes 
the  particular  realities,  their  differences  and  relations,  and  thus  attains 
clear,  definite  and  complete  cognition,  which  can  be  declared  in  a  judg- 
ment or  proposition. 

3.  Reflection  or  thought  consists  of  Apprehension,  Differentiation  and 
Integration,  f 

The  reflex  act  of  thought  is  primarily  attention,  alike  in  apprehend- 
ing, discriminating  and  comprehending.  The  mind  turns  back  or  re- 
flects on  the  reality  presented  in  intuition,  and  notes  what  it  is.  Real- 

*  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  Transcendental  Analytic,  Book  II.    Chap.  II.    Sect. 
III.  2. 
f  "  Thesis,  Antithesis,  Synthesis."    J.  G.  Fichte. 

4 


50  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

ity  consists  of  beings,  their  differences,  and  the  relations  by  which  they 
are  in  unity.  The  mind  as  it  reflects  on  this  reality  notes  the  beings 
which  are  presented  in  it,  traces  out  their  differences,  and  notes  their 
unity  in  various  relations.  These  are  the  tjjiree  acts  of  thought,  appre- 
hension, differentiation  and  integration  or  comprehension.  The  unit  of 
thought  is  a  particular  being,  simple  or  complex.  The  first  act  of  thought 
is  the  apprehension  of  a  particular  being  in  the  qualities,  acts  and  modes 
of  existence  in  which  it  is  presented  to  us  in  intuition.  For  according 
to  a  necessary  law  of  thought  we  do  not  apprehend  qualities  and  acts  as 
appearances  merely,  but  we  apprehend  the  being  that  appears  and  acts 
in  them.  Hence  apprehension  is  sometimes  called  identification,  be- 
cause it  is  the  identifying  of  the  qualities  and  acts  with  the  being  that 
appears  and  acts  in  them.  I  cannot  apprehend  color,  form,  solidity, 
motion  or  thought  except  as  I  know  some  being  existing  (ex-sisto)  or 
standing  out  to  view  in  the  color,  form,  solidity,  motion  or  thought. 
Conversely,  I  cannot  apprehend  being  except  as  existing  in  some  qual- 
ity, action  or  mode. 

Apprehension,  therefore,  is  the  reflex  act  of  the  mind  attending  to 
some  particular  portion  of  the  reality  given  in  intuition,  noting  what  it 
is,  and  thus  making  it  an  object  or  unit  of  thought.  Thus  one  walking 
in  the  evening  has  the  starry  sky  before  his  eyes,  spread  out  as  an  un- 
discriminated expanse.  Presently  he  fixes  his  attention  on  Sirius,  notes 
its  size,  brightness  and  bluish  tint,  and  thus  apprehends  it.  In  a  busy 
city  he  hears  a  confused  mingling  of  sounds,  discriminating  none ;  pres- 
ently he  attends  to  a  particular  sound  and  apprehends  it  as  a  charcoal- 
vender's  cry.  Or  he  feels  at  once  the  chair  on  which  he  sits,  the  table 
on  which  he  leans,  the  pen  which  he  holds  in  his  hand,  without  noticing 
any.  Presently  he  attends  to  one  of  these  things,  notes  something  about 
it  which  interests  him  for  the  moment  and  so  apprehends  it.  He  attends 
(at-tendo},  stretches  his  mind,  as  it  were,  about  the  object  and  grasps  it 
as  an  object  of  thought.  His  apprehension  may  go  no  further  than  to 
note  its  figure  in  space,  or  it  may  extend  to  a  more  careful  and  com- 
plete observation  of  its  qualities ;  but  in  either  case  he  apprehends  or 
grasps  it  in  his  mind.  The  first  act  of  thought,  then,  is  attending  to 
some  portion  of  reality  presented  in  intuition  and  apprehending  or 
grasping  what  it  is  which  the  intuition  presents  to  the  mind. 

Language  recognizes  this  distinction  between  the  mere  presentation 
of  a  reality  in  sense-perception  or  self-consciousness,  and  the  intelligent 
apprehension  of  it  by  the  mind ;  as  in  the  significance  of  look  as  dis- 
tinguished from  see ;  listen  as  distinguished  from  hear ;  touch,  handle  as 
distinguished  from  feel;  and  in  the  French  language  the  same  distinc- 
tion is  extended  to  the  other  senses ;  flairer  and  sentir ;  savourer  and 
gouter.  Apprehension  by  taste  is  exemplified  in  a  taster  of  teas.  He 


THE  ACTS  AND   PROCESSES  OF  KNOWING.  51 

tastes  the  infusion  in  one  of  a  row  of  cups,  attends  to  it  and  appre- 
hends what  the  flavor  is.  He  then  distinguishes  or  differentiates  it  from 
teas  of  different  flavors  already  known  to  him ;  he  then  integrate* 
or  comprehends  it  in  a  unity  or  class  of  teas  of  the  same  flavor  and 
pronounces  it  Souchong  of  the  second  quality.  A  delicate  eater  attends 
to  or  apprehends  the  flavor  of  every  morsel  and  thus  gets  pleasure, 
while  another,  intent  on  other  objects,  eats  without  noticing  the  flavor 
of  his  food. 

Differentiation  or  discrimination  is  the  reflex  act  in  which  the  mind 
turning  its  attention  on  the  reality  given  in  intuition,  notes  the  peculi- 
arities of  an  object  already  apprehended  and  thus  distinguishes  it  from 
other  objects. 

Integration  or  comprehension  is  the  reflex  act  in  which  the  mind,  after 
having  apprehended  two  or  more  objects  and  distinguished  them  from 
one  another,  continues  to  fix  its  attention  on  them,  and  takes  cogni- 
zance of  them  in  their  real  relations  and  thus  integrates  or  comprehends 
them  in  a  unity. 

A  relation  is  any  real  connection  between  two  or  more  objects  by 
attending  to  which  the  mind  comprehends  them  in  a  unity  of  thought. 
Having  differentiated  them,  by  perception  of  this  relation  it  brings 
them  back  (re-latiou)  into  unity  of  thought.  The  relation  is  not 
created  by  the  mind  as  a  mere  subjective  thought,  but  it  is  objectively 
real  and  perceived  as  such.  Thus  we  discover  relations  of  distance 
and  position  in  space,  of  antecedence,  sequence  and  simultaneousness  in 
time,  of  degree  and  equality  in  quantity,  of  resemblance  in  quality,  of 
causal  efficiency,  of  knowledge  connecting  a  subject  knowing  and  an 
object  known,  and  many  others. 

The  process  of  thought  may  be  compared  to  the  resolving  of  a  nebula 
wdth  a  telescope.  In  the  faintly  luminous  mist  as  it  appears  to  the 
naked  eye,  the  astronomer  finds  the  stars,  distinguishes  them  from 
one  another,  comprehends  them  in  the  unity  of  a  cluster,  and  is  able  to 
comprehend  them  in  the  profounder  unity  of  their  astronomical  rela- 
tions. So  in  the  nebulous  matter  of  intuition,  thought  apprehends  the 
particular  realities,  distinguishes  them  from  one  another,  and  then 
comprehends  them  intelligently  in  the  unity  of  their  real  relations. 
The  process  of  thought  may  be  compared  to  the  development  of  life  in 
the  incubation  of  an  egg ;  the  homogeneous  yolk  is  diversified  into 
lines  and  parts  distinguished  from  each  other,  and  these  parts  are  then 
integrated  in  the  living  organism  of  the  chick. 

Ulrici  makes  all  thought  to  consist  of  differentiation.*  Hamilton 
makes  it  all  to  consist  of  comparison.  But  it  is  evident  that  before  two 
objects  can  be  compared  or  comprehended  in  a  unity,  they  must  have 
*  System  der  Logik,  S.  66  and  ante. 


52  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

been  known  as  distinct ;   and  before  they  can  be  differentiated,  each 
must  have  been  apprehended  as  an  object  of  thought. 

II.  All  human  thought  consists  of  apprehension,  differentiation  and 
comprehension  or  integration. 

By  these  processes  men  think  on  all  subjects.  If  thought  is  the 
observation  of  a  sensible  object,  it  begins  with  apprehending  what  it  is. 
I  once  heard  Prof.  Agassiz  say  that  when  he  found  an  insect  of  a  spe- 
cies new  to  him,  he  was  accustomed  to  spend  some  hours  in  close  in- 
spection of  it,  and  thus  he  got  it  so  completely  in  his  mind  that  he 
never  failed  afterwards  .to  recognize  it.  This  was  his  apprehension  of  it. 
He  could  then  distinguish  it  from  all  other  species  by  the  properties 
peculiar  to  it,  and  could  by  resemblance  assign  it  to  its  proper  genus 
and  species.  The  same  are  the  processes  in  the,  farthest  range  and 
most  complicated  action  of  thought.  In  all  thinking  the  mind  follows 
this  beaten  track.  In  the  most  complicated  processes  of  thought  the 
mind  can  do  no  more  than  to  apprehend,  discriminate,  and  compre- 
hend. It  has  but  three  questions  to  ask :  What  is  it  ?  What  is  it  not  ? 
How  is  it  related  to  other  things  in  the  unity  of  a  harmonious  whole  ? 
Thus  the  ancient  Greek  philosophy  classified  the  objects  of  human 
inquiry :  TO  6v,  TO  grepov,  TO  ev — being,  its  difference,  its  unity. 

When  two  or  more  objects  have  been  apprehended  and  discrimi- 
nated, the  mind  proceeds  to  cognize  them  in  a  larger  unity  or  whole 
and  in  real  relations  not  discovered  at  the  first  glance.  This  whole 
becomes  a  new  unit  of  thought  to  be  differentiated  and  integrated 
again.  And  this  process  the  mind  continues  till  it  comprehends  all 
material  things  in  the  unity  of  a  Cosmos,  and  it  and  all  spiritual  reality 
in  the  unity  of  a  rational  system  under  the  government  of  God. 

All  error  in  thinking  must  be  in  one  or  the  other  of  these  three  pro- 
cesses ;  and  thought  should  be  carefully  guarded  in  each.  Error  arises 
when  the  thinker  does  not  clearly,  correctly  and  adequately  apprehend 
the  object  under  consideration;  or  when  he  confounds  it  with  that  which 
differs ;  or  when  he  integrates  the  discriminated  realities  in  false  and 
unreal  relations,  or  in  a  partial  and  one-sided  unity  excluding  realities 
and  relations  essential  to  the  comprehensiveness  and  completeness  of 
the  thought. 

III.  Thought  does  not  present  to  the  mind  the  beings  which  are  its 
objects,  nor  their  differences  and  relations ;  it  merely  apprehends  some 
reality  which  intuition  presents,  and  under  the  regulation  of  the  laws 
of  thought  traces  out  the  differences  actually  existing  between  the 
apprehended  objects  and  discovers  the  real  relations  by  which  they 
exist  in  unity.     Thence  it  may  proceed,  beyond  what  is  presented  in 
intuition,  to  infer,  according  to  the  principles  of  reason,  the  existence  of 
reality  not  actually  observed  and  to  determine  its  differences  and  rela- 


THE  ACTS   AND  PROCESSES  OF  KNOWING.  53 

tions.  This  process  we  call  reasoning;  but  it  is  only  apprehending, 
differentiating  and  integrating  under  the  regulative  principles  known 
by  rational  intuition. 

The  necessity  of  thought  has  been  illustrated  by  comparing  the  un- 
discriminated content  of  intuition  to  light  falling  on  the  eye  without 
shade  or  color,  which  would  make  sight  as  useless  as  it  would  be  in 
total  darkness ;  or  by  the  supposition  that  every  object  was  of  the  same 
shade  of  blue,  which  would  destroy  all  knowledge  of  color.  *  But 
these  analogies  are  misleading ;  for  they  seem  to  imply  that  thought 
creates  the  qualities,  differences  and  relations  of  reality;  whereas  it 
only  takes  cognizance  of  them.  If  in  the  reality  presented  in  intui- 
tion, there  were  no  qualities,  peculiarities  and  relations  identifying  and 
distinguishing  the  reality,  thought  would  be  forever  unable  to  appre- 
hend, distinguish  and  comprehend  it. 

IV.  Thought,  as  thus  far  considered,  has  for  its  object  beings,  their 
differences  and  relations,  and  those  complex  unities  and  larger  systems 
of  beings  which  thought  discovers.  These  may  be  either  present  in 
intuition  or  remembered.  For  we  have  seen  that  every  process  of 
knowledge  which  has  duration  involves  memory. 

There  are  also  certain  subsidiary  objects  of  thought,  necessary  to  the 
best  prosecution  of  our  thinking  about  these  realities,  yet  deriving  all 
their  significance  from  the  fact  that  they  stand  for  them. 

One  class  of  these  subsidiary  objects  of  thought  is  the  mind's  own 
representations,  not  with  memory  of  the  objects  represented,  but  present 
in  consciousness  simply  as  representations.  These  the  mind  apprehends, 
differentiates  and  integrates,  forming  ideal  creations. 

We  can  also  attend  to  a  being  as  it  appears  in  a  single  property  or 
act  and  distinguish  it  from  or  compare  it  with  the  being  appearing  in 
another  property  or  act.  This  process  is  called  abstraction.  By  ab- 
stracting single  properties  and  acts  and  making  them  objects  of  atten- 
tion, we  are  able  to  apprehend,  differentiate  and  integrate  them.  It 
must  be  noticed  however  that  the  object  of  thought  here  is  still  a  being, 
though  attended  to  as  appearing  in  a  single  property  or  act. 

We  also  form  logical  concepts  or  geneial  notions.  The  necessity  for 
these  is  in  the  limitation  of  the  human  mind.  If  it  were  necessary  in 
thinking  to  .know  every  object  in  all  its  peculiarities  as  an  individual, 
and  to  designate  it  by  a  particular  name,  the  multiplicity  of  objects 
would  overwhelm  the  mind  and  confound  alike  the  power  of  expressing 
thought  and  the  power  of  thinking.  The  mind,  therefore,  resorts  to 
the  expedient  of  grouping  together  in  a  concept  01  general  notion  indi- 
viduals which  have  certain  common  qualities,  disregarding  qualities  in 

*  Ulrici  System  der  Logik,  S.  65.  Hobbes  says,  "  Sentire  sempei  idem  et  non 
sentire,  ad  idem  recidunt."  "  To  perceive  always  the  same  is  all  one  with  not 
perceiving  anything."  Physica,  iv.  25;  opera,  I.  321,  Molesworth  Ed. 


54  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

which  the  individuals  differ  and  designating  the  concept  by  a  symbol 
oral  or  written.  We  as  it  were  bind  these  individuals  in  bundles, 
labeling  each  bundle ;  then  we  can  handle  them  and  pass  them  from 
hand  to  hand.  Man's  power  of  using  general  notions  and  of  designa- 
ting them  by  language  whereby  he  is  able  to  lift  himself  above  the 
multiplicity  of  objects  which  confuses  him,  master  it  with  knowledge, 
and  communicate,  perpetuate  and  accumulate  his  knowledge,  demon- 
strates his  pre-eminent  greatness.  Yet  in  another  view  the  necessity  of 
resorting  to  this  expedient  reveals  his  limitations.  God  alone  knows 
all  objects  severally  in  their  individuality  and  "calleth  them  all  by 
name." 

3  13.    Thought  Distinguished   by  its  Objects. 

Thought  may  be  distinguished  by  its  objects  into  three  kinds :  Ab- 
stract or  Formal;  Concrete  or  Realistic;  and  Creative.  In  each  case 
thought  consists  of  apprehension,  differentiation  and  integration ;  the 
distinction  is  only  in  the  object  on  which  the  thought  is  employed. 

I.  Formal  or  abstract  thought  has  for  its  object  a  logical  concept  or 
general  notion  designated  by  a  general  name,  and  consists  principally 
in  the  analysis  and  distribution  of  the  content  of  the  general  notion  by 
means  of  the  syllogism. 

II.  Thought  is  concrete  or  realistic  when  its  object  is  a  particular 
reality  presented  in  consciousness  or  remembered.     In  concrete  thought 
general  notions  and  words  are  used,  but  the  object  to  which  the  thought 
is  directed  is  a  concrete  reality  presented  at  the  time  or  remembered. 
For  example,  when  a  chemist  is  investigating  the  properties  of  oxygen, 
he  has  some  particular  portion  of  oxygen  before  him  and  the  judgment 
in  which  he  affirms  the  result  of  his  observation  and  experiment  affirms 
some  particular  action  of  that  particular  portion  of  oxygen.     When 
a  botanist  examines  a  plant  or  a  zoologist   an  animal,  his  thought  is 
upon  the   particular  specimen  before   him.     After  examining   many 
specimens  and  finding  the  same  property  common  to  them  all,  he  is 
able  by  induction  to  predicate  that  property  of  all  individuals  of  the 
kind.     But  in  every  case  the  object  of  his  investigation  is  not  a  general 
notion  designated  by  a  word,  but  is  the  concrete  reality  itself. 

Some  of  the  processes  of  concrete  thought  are  Observation  and  Experi- 
ment, Classification,  Co-ordination  in  invariable  sequences  or  laws  of  na- 
ture, Colligation  of  facts,  Induction,  Deduction,  Verification,  Interpre- 
tation and  Vindication  of  facts  to  the  Reason  and  Systemization.  De- 
duction, as  it  appears  in  concrete  thought,  consists  of  inferring  effects 
from  a  known  cause,  particulars  from  a  known  universal  principle  or 
law  and  mathematical  truths  from  the  forms  of  space  and  number. 

III.  Thought  is  called  Creative  when  its  object  is  a  mental  represen- 
tation. 


THE  ACTS  AND,  PROCESSES  OF  KNOWING.  55 

Creative  thought  is  the  reflex  action  of  the  mind  on  its  own  represen- 
tations, apprehending  them,  distinguishing  them  from  each  other  and 
comprehending  them  in  a  complex  whole.  The  primitive  process  is  the 
same  as  in  formal  and  realistic  thought ;  but  as  the  objects  of  thought 
are  the  mind's  own  representations,  the  results  can  be  only  mental  re- 
presentations ;  just  as  in  formal  thinking,  since  the  objects  of  thought 
are  notions  and  words,  the  result  of  the  thinking  can  be  only  notions 
and  words.  The  power  of  creative  thought  is  the  Imagination. 

1.  In  its  lower  forms  creative  thought  is  fantastic;  that  is,  it  is  not 
regulated  by  rational  truths  and  laws.     In  this  lower  action  it  may  be 
called  fancy  or  phantasy  rather  than  imagination.     A  centaur,  or  a 
tree  with  leaves  of  silver,  blossoms  of  precious  stones  and  fruit  of  gold 
are  fantastic  creations.     The  creations  of  fancy  are  sometimes  pleasing. 
I  recall,  as  an  example,  a  pretty  French  picture  of  autumn,  in  which 
cherubs  are  putting  out  the  flowers  with  extinguishers.     Another  ex- 
ample is  Ruckert's  "  Der  Himmel  ein  Brief"  in  which  he  compares  the 
sky  to  a  letter  of  which  the  sun  is  the  seal ;  when  night  takes  off  the 

^seal,  we  read  in  a  thousand  starry  letters  that  God  is  love. 

2.  In  its  higher  form,  the  imagination  creates  ideals  accordant  with 
rational  truth  and  law,  in  which  it  embodies  its  highest  conceptions  of 
the  perfect.     The  creations  of  imagination  differ  from  fantastic  combi- 
nations in  that  they  express  the  deepest  truth  and  reality ;  they  differ 
from  imitation  in  that  they  begin  with  ideals  and  proceed  to  express 
them  outwardly,  while  imitation  begins  with  the  outward  object  and 
tries  empirically  to  copy  it.     Imagination  seizes  its  object  by  the  heart 
and  works  from  within  outwards. 

3.  While  the  imagination  cannot  of  itself  carry  knowledge  beyond  its 
own  representations  it  takes  the  lead  in  every  sphere  of  intellectual  activity. 

Imagination  creates  the  ideals  which  the  artist  expresses  on  the  can- 
vas and  in  the  marble,  in  words  and  music,  in  buildings  and  parks. 

It  creates  the  ideals  of  mechanical  inventions.  When  Hargreaves 
upset  his  wife's  spinning-wheel,  he  saw  in  the  revolving  vertical  spindle 
the  ideal  of  the  spinning-jenny.  Watt  saw  the  steam-engine  in  the 
uplifting  of  the  lid  of  a  tea-kettle.  Galileo  saw  the  principle  of  the 
pendulum  in  a  swinging  chandelier. 

It  takes  the  lead  in  scientific  discovery.  When  it  flashed  on  Newton, 
as  by  an  inspiration,  that  the  law  according  to  which  apples  fall  from  a 
tree  is  the  law  of  the  solar  system,  he  created  in  his  thought  a  solar 
system  regulated  by  that  law.  Kepler  created  in  thought  the  orbit  of 
Mars ;  in  fact  tried  nineteen  hypotheses  before  he  hit  the  geometrical  fig- 
ure in  which  all  the  known  facts  as  to  the  positions  of  the  planet  could 
be  colligated.  Harvey,  seeing  the  valves  in  the  veins,  saw  the  circulation 
of  the  blood,  creating  in  imagination  the  circulatory  system  of  the  body. 


56  THE   PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

The  creative  faculty  is  equally  essential  in  criticism.  The  critic 
must  penetrate  through  the  work  of  art  to  the  ideal  which  it  expresses. 
He  stands  before  the  finished  work,  as  an  explorer  and  discoverer 
stands  before  the  complicated  realities  of  nature.  He  must  create  in 
his  own  imagination  the  ideal  of  the  work  and  the  plan  of  the  artist  in 
expressing  it,  and  thus  find  its  intended  unity  and  significance  before 
he  can  criticize  its  execution.  It  takes  a  genius  to  understand  a  genius. 
It  takes  a  Goethe  to  reveal  a  Shakespeare,  an  Addison  to  reveal  a 
Milton. 

The  creative  power  is  equally  essential  in  teaching  and  in  all  com- 
munication of  thought.  The  ideal,  the  whole  created  in  imagination 
according  to  its  real  principles,  must  be  presented  and  grasped  before 
the  learner  can  analyze  it  into  its  elements  or  construct  its  scattered 
elements  into  the  real  whole. 

Even  in  practical  affairs  the  imagination  is  equally  pre-eminent 
whether  in  a  statesman  constructing  the  plan  of  a  wise  administration 
of  government,  or  in  a  general  planning  a  campaign,  or  in  a  merchant 
or  manufacturer  planning  his  business. 

In  every  sphere  of  human  thought  it  is  the  leading  power  of  the 
intellect,  the  queen  of  all  the  faculties  of  intelligence.  In  its  higher 
inventions  and  discoveries  it  is  "the  vision  and  faculty  divine"  of 
genius.  Where  a  common  mind  sees  a  kettle  lid  lifted,  a  spinning- 
wheel  thrown  over,  a  chandelier  swinging,  a  genius  sees  the  application 
of  a  power  which  changes  the  history  of  the  world.  Where  a  common 
mind  sees  only  a  mass  of  intricate  and  confused  facts,  the  genius  sees 
the  principle  and  law  by  which  they  are  constructed  into  the  unity  of  a 
system.  The  facts  lie  heaped  in  tables  of  figures  and  collections  of 
books.  It  is  only  to  the  Orphic  music  of  a  master-thought  that  they 
move  and  arrange  themselves  in  the  harmony  and  beauty  of  a  scientific 
system.  This  is  the  effect  of  the  imagination,  the  creative  power  of  the 

mind: 

"Which  in  truth 

Is  but  another  name  for  absolute  power, 
And  clearest  insight,  amplitude  of  mind, 
And  reason  in  her  most  exalted  mood." 

IV.  Scientific  investigation  is  principally  by  concrete  thought, 
though  necessarily  supplemented  by  the  abstract  and  the  creative. 
The  imagination  creates  hypotheses  and  suggests  lines  of  investigation ; 
but  it  cannot  of  itself  go  beyond  its  own  representations.  Formal  or 
abstract  thought  is  indispensable  because  we  must  use  words  and  gen- 
eral notions ;  but  it  is  inadequate. 

1.  Formal  or  abstract  thought  is  inadequate  on  account  of  the 
thinker's  tendency  to  stop  in  the  general  notions  and  words.  As  its 


THE  ACTS  AND  PROCESSES  OF  KNOWING.  57 

objects  are  notions  designated  by  words,  the  thought  itself  often  fails  to 
go  beyond  them.  But  scientific  thinking  must  needs  penetrate  within 
the  general  notions  and  names  to  the  realities  signified.  Boole  says : 
"  By  some  it  is  maintained  that  words  represent  the  conceptions  of  the 

mind  alone ;  by  others  that  they  represent  things In  the 

processes  of  reasoning  signs  stand  in  the  place  and  fulfil  the  office  of  the 
conceptions  and  operations  of  the  mind ;  but  as  those  conceptions  and 
operations  represent  things  and  the  connections  and  relations  of  things, 
so  signs  represent  things  with  their  connections  and  relations ;  and  lastly, 
as  signs  stand  in  the  place  of  conceptions  and  operations  of  the  mind, 
they  are  subject  to  the  laws  of  those  conceptions  and  operations."* 
But  though  the  word  is  the  sign  of  the  concept  yet  it  is  only  a  sign  or 
symbol  of  it ;  and  though  the  concept  is  a  concept  of  things  yet  it  can 
be  designated  only  by  a  symbol  and  can  be  imaged  as  reality  only  in 
some  one  of  the  particular  things  included  in  it.  Hence  the  danger 
that  the  thought  stop  in  the  words,  and  the  necessity  to  complete  intel- 
ligence that  the  thought  pass  through  the  words  to  the  things. 

"  Battles  are  bloody  " :  the  mind  assents  without  emotion.  The  sight 
of  a  battle,  a  visit  to  a  battle-field  directly  after  the  fight,  a  narrative 
of  the  experience  of  a  single  wounded  soldier,  fills  up  the  words  with  a 
terrific  meaning.  "  London  is  in  England " :  but  it  takes  the  experi- 
ence of  a  lifetime  in  that  city  to  learn  what  it  is  in  England  which 
is  denoted  by  the  word  London.  Through  thus  stopping  in  the  words 
and  not  going  through  the  words  to  the  things  comes  so  often  the 
unreality  of  knowledge  gained  out  of  a  book  through  words.  Thought 
about  things  is  necessary  to  give  freshness  and  significance  to  thought 
about  words  and  concepts.  As  Carlyle  says,  to  think  it  is  to  thing  it. 
Ludwig  Noire  says :  "  The  only  correct  method  of  investigation  is  to 
verify  things  by  things  " ;  and  he  exemplifies  the  difficulty  of  reaching 
reality  through  words  by  relating  that  a  number  of  eminent  philolo- 
gists had  a  feast  prepared  according  to  some  ancient  Greek  recipes, 
with  the  result  that  it  thoroughly  disordered  the  stomachs  of  all  who 
partook  of  it  and  caused  the  death  of  one  of  them.  An  extreme  ex- 
ample of  sticking  in  the  letter  he  gives  in  the  story  that  when  the « 
Florentines  began  eagerly  to  look  through  Galileo's  telescope,  the  priests 
rebuked  them  from  the  Scriptures  with  the  words,  "  Viri  Galilaei,  quid 
statis  spectantes  in  coelum "  ?  And  he  quotes  a  warning  against  this 
danger  of  empty  thinking  from  Thomas  Aquinas :  "  Names  do  not 
follow  the  mode  of  being  which  is  in  things,  but  the  mode  of  being 
which  is  according  to  our  cognition."  f  Spinoza  gives  a  similar  cau- 


*  Boole's  Laws  of  Thought,  p.  26. 

f  Ludwig  Noire;  Die  Welt  als  Entwickelung  des  Geistes,  §§  10,  11,  12,  13. 


58  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM, 

tion :  "  Whence  it  is  easy  to  see  how  carefully  we  should  avoid,  in  the 
investigation  of  things,  the  confounding  of  the  entities  of  reality  with 
the  entities  of  thought.  It  is  one  thing  to  inquire  into  the  nature  of 
things,  another  to  inquire  into  the  modes  in  which  they  are  perceived 
by  us.  If  these  two  are  confounded  we  shall  neither  be  able  to  under- 
stand the  modes  of  our  receiving  nor  the  nature  of  the  things  itself."* 
Examples  of  confounding  psychological  processes  with  logical,  and  of 
substituting  logical  concepts  and  forms  for  reality  are  frequent  in 
the  Avritings  of  Hamilton,  Kant,  and  notwithstanding  the  warning  just 
quoted,  of  Spinoza  himself;  and  the  exposure  of  this  confusion  is  often 
a  sufficient  exposure  and  refutation  of  their  fallacies.  The  pantheism 
of  Kant's  successors  in  Germany  was  little  else  than  a  resolving  of  the 
world-process  into  a  process  of  logic.  Beings,  their  qualities,  differ- 
ences and  relations  are  not  known  from  the  logical  concepts  of  thought ; 
the  logical  concepts  are  formed  from  the  knowledge  of  beings. 

2.  Formal  or  abstract  thought,  being  limited  to  the  analysis  and 
distribution  of  concepts  already  formed  and  named,  is  insufficient  for 
the  synthetic  processes  by  which  we  enlarge  our  knowledge  of  reality, 
and  for  the  synthetic  or  ampliative  judgments  which  enunciate  the  new 
knowledge  acquired  by  our  investigations.     It  is  incompetent  also  foi 
the  scientific  analysis  of  real  things,  to  which  the  most  intractable 
compounds  reveal  the  secret  of  their  elements.     Modern  science,  em- 
pirical, philosophical  and  theological,  has  not  been  built  up  by  the 
analysis  of  concepts  and  words. 

3.  Accordingly  the  three  primary  axioms  of  formal  logic,  the  princi- 
ples of  identity,  of  non-contradiction  and  excluded  middle,  are  not  a 
sufficient  basis  for  the  logic  of  realistic  thought  engaged  in  the  investi- 
gation of  reality  and  the  discovery  and  systemization  of  facts.     These 
axioms  of  pure  or  formal  thought  are  founded  on  the  categories  of 
unity,  plurality  and  totality,  which  pertain  to  number  without  neces- 
sarily including  any  content  of  reality.     But  the  principles  of  real 
thinking  must  carry  reality  through  the  whole  process.     Reality  in  its 
individuality,  diversity,  complexity,  is  much  more  than  the  mere  forms  of 
unity,  plurality,  totality.     In  realistic  thinking,  the  judgment  of  identity 
expressed  in  the  formula,  A  is  A,  is  not  the  identical  proposition, 
"  Whatever  is,  is,"  which  some  logicians  f  have  propounded  as  the  first 
principle  of  all  thinking.     Rather  it  is  the  judgment  that  the  A  of 
thought  is  the  intellectual  equivalent  of  the  A  of  reality ;   and  this 
reality  is  not  a  general  notion  expressed  by  a  name,  but  a  concrete 
reality  apprehended  in  the  concrete  qualities  and  activities  which  mani- 

*  Cogitata  Metaphysica ;  Appendix  Renati  Descartes  Principiorum  Philosophise. 
Pars  prima,  Cap.  i.  §  9.     Bridges'  Ed.  Vol.  i.  p.  102. 

t  Prof.  Jevons,  Principles  of  Science,  p.  5.    See  Ueberweg  Logik,  §  77. 


THE  ACTS  AND   PEOCESSES  OF  KNOWING.  59 

fest  what  it  is.  It  is  the  judgment  which  declares  the  result  of  simple 
apprehension;  that  is,  it  declares  in  respect  to  any  portion  of  pre- 
sented reality  which  has  become  the  object  of  attention,  what  the 
reality  is  which  the  intuition  has  brought  before  the  mind. 

The  realistic  judgment  of  difference,  A  is  not  B,  must  not  be  con- 
founded with  the  judgment  of  non-contradiction,  A  is  not  not- A.  Two 
contradictories  cannot  co-exist ;  one  excludes  the  other ;  but  two  objects 
that  differ  are  both  known  to  exist  and  to  exist  as  different ;  the  other 
is  as  real  as  the  one. 

The  judgment  of  excluded  middle,  "  everything  is  either  A  or  it  is 
not- A,"  in  which  formal  thought  is  completed,  recognizes  the  sum  total 
of  thought  merely  as  a  total  of  number.  But  a  complex  whole  of 
reality  is  much  more  than  a  total  of  arithmetic,  because  the  parts  are 
individual  realities  differing  from  each  other,  and  the  relations  which 
unite  them  are  real  and  diverse.  Of  this  no  notice  is  taken  in  the 
formal  thought  which  forms  its  totals  by  counting  and  rests  on  the 
maxim  that  the  whole  is  equal  to  the  sum  of  all  its  parts.  This  is  a 
maxim  of  arithmetic  which  deals  only  with  number,  but  not  of  science 
which  deals  with  concrete  realities.  A  family,  a  nation,  §  steam-engine 
is  more  and  other  than  the  sum .  of  all  its  parts.  The  substitution  of 
the  empty  forms  of  number,  unity,  plurality  and  totality  for  reality,  with 
its  individualities,  differences  and  relations,  and  the  errors  consequent, 
are  conspicuous  in  the  writings  of  Hamilton ;  in  consequence  of  which 
his  "  absolute "  fluctuates  between  an  arithmetical  total,  and  a  logical 
concept  comprising  all  things  and  distinguished  from  nothing;  his 
grand  law  of  thought  includes  all  that  is  conceivable  in  thought  between 
two  extremes  contradictory  of  each  other,  and  yet  both  necessarily 
believed;  and  his  only  resource  to  save  reason  from  being  entirely 
discredited  by  its  own  antinomies,  is  to  recognize  its  impotence ;  so  that 
the  necessary  beliefs  of  reason  are  resolved  into  the  mind's  conscious- 
ness of  its  own  self-contradiction  and  incompetence. 

Instead,  therefore,  of  the  law  of  excluded  middle,  which  recognizes 
the  universe  merely  as  a  numerical  total  composed  of  A  and  not- A,  we 
have,  in  concrete  thinking,  the  judgment,  A  is  related  to  B,  C,  D,  &c., 
in  the  unity  of  a  complete  whole.  Or,  all  things  exist  in  relation  to 
each  other  in  the  unity  of  a  complex  whole  or  system. 

4.  To  supplement  the  inadequacy  of  the  formal  logic  Leibnitz  sug- 
gested the  additional  principle  of  the  Sufficient  Reason ;  of  which  he 
says :  "  This  principle  is  that  of  the  need  of  a  sufficient  reason  why  a 
thing  exists,  why  an  event  happens,  and  why  a  truth  is  held."  *  This 
principle  may  be  accepted ;  not  merely  in  the  sense  that  thought  must 

*  Fifth  Letter  to  Samuel  Clarke,  §  125;  also  Theod.  I.  §44. 


60  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

account  for  every  beginning  or  change  by  finding  its  cause,  but  in  the 
broader  meaning  that  thought  must  account  for  and  explain  all  reality 
by  its  accordance  with  the  truths,  laws  and  ends  of  reason  in  the  unity 
of  a  rational  system.  It  is  impossible  for  a  rational  being  to  rest  in 
any  thought  as  completed  until  this  accord  with  reason  is  discovered. 

Prof.  Bowen  proposes  to  reduce  all  these  principles  to  two:  "All 
thought  must  be  consistent  with  itself; "  "  All  thought  must  be  conse- 
quent ;  that  is  it  should  never  affirm  or  deny  a  union  of  two  concepts 
without  any  ground  for  such  affirmation  or  denial."*  But  this  still 
keeps  us  within  the  limits  of  formal  or  abstract  thought.  The  fact  that 
thought  is  consistent  with  and  consequent  on  itself  does  not  prove  it  to 
be  knowledge  of  reality. 

5.  The  principles,  which  underlie  realistic  or  concrete  thought,  and 
are  the  basis  of  a  logical  science  of  its  lawrs,  seem  to  be  these : 

(a)  Thought  must  be  consistent  with  reality  as  given  in  intuition. 

(b)  Thought  must  be  consistent  with   itself.     This  is  the  positive 
form  of  the  law  of  non-contradiction.     While  consistency  of  thought 
with  itself  does  not  prove  it  true,  its  inconsistency  with  itself  or  its  self- 
contradictoriness  proves  it  false. 

(c)  Thought  must  be  consistent  with  the  regulative  principles   of 
reason. 

To  these  may  be  added  three  others,  which  may  be  called  laws  of 
things  as  well  as  laws  of  thought. 

(d)  Knowledge  is  correlative  to  reality.     This,  as  has  been  shown,  is 
of  the  essence  of  knowledge.    Thought  then  must  not  only  be  consistent 
with  intuition,  carefully  including  all  and  excluding  nothing  which 
intuition  gives,  it  must  carry  with  it  also  the  certainty  that  intuition 
rightly  connoted  is  knowledge  of  reality. 

(e)  What  is  contradictory  in  thought  is  impossible  in  reality;   or, 
stated  positively,  all  particular  realities  are  consistent  with  one  another 
in  reciprocal  relations  in  the  unity  of  a  complex  whole.     Contradiction 
is  no  more  possible  in  objective  reality  than  in  subjective  thought. 
Co-existing  realities  are  always  compatible. 

(f )  What  is  contradictory  to  the  necessary  truths  of  reason  is  impos- 
sible in  reality.     The  absurd  cannot  be  real.     Or,  stated  positively,  all 
particular  realities  must  be  accounted  for  and  explained  to  the  reason 
as  existing  in  a  rational  system  consistent  writh  the  truths,  laws,  ideals 
and  ends  of  reason. 

6.  These  principles  are  at  the  basis  of  all  scientific  investigation. 
Science  assumes  them  at  the  start.     It  starts  with  the  assumption  that 
things  are  concatenated,  that  there  is  unity  in  all  diversity,  and  that 

*  Logic,  pp.  48,  53. 


THE  ACTS  AND  PROCESSES  OF  KNOWING.  61 

every  object  in  the  universe  exists  in  scientific  or  rational  relations, 
whether  it  can  or  cannot  be  scientifically  known  by  us.  When  a  new 
animal,  plant  or  mineral  is  discovered  it  is  taken  for  granted  that  it 
can  be  scientifically  classified ;  when  a  new  fact  is  observed  it  is  taken 
for  granted  that  it  can  be  co-ordinated  under  natural  law.  All  science 
starts  with  the  assumption  that  the  universe  is  a  rational  system  and 
that  every  reality  in  it  must  be  in  relation  to  other  reality  in  that 
system ;  and,  if  accessible  to  our  knowledge,  may  be  found  hi  its  place 
in  a  system  of  scientific  thought. 

7.  That  advancement  in  science  is  made  chiefly  by  the  processes  of 
concrete  thought  is  true  of  philosophical  and  theological  science,  not 
less  really  than  of  empirical.  Philosophy  and  theology  are  not  the 
knowledge  of  propositions,  notions  and  words,  but  of  beings,  their  qual- 
ities, powers,  conditions  and  relations ;  they  are  the  knowledge  of  these 
in  their  accordance  with  the  truths,  laws,  ideals  and  ends  of  reason,  and 
in  the  unity  of  a  rational  system  expressing  the  archetypal  thoughts  of 
the  absolute  and  supreme  reason.  The  object  of  religious  faith  is  not 
doctrine,  but  the  living  God. 

3  14.    Induction  and  the  Newtonian   Method. 

A  special  consideration  of  induction  is  necessary  not  only  on  account 
of  its  intrinsic  importance,  but  also  because  the  students  of  the  phy- 
sical sciences  are  designating  them  as  distinctively  Inductive  Sciences, 
thus  appropriating  the  word  and  insinuating  that  induction  is  used  in 
no  other  sphere  of  thought ;  it  is  necessary,  also,  because  the  word  in- 
duction is  now  used  ambiguously  and  confusedly  to  denote  two  distinct 
methods  of  reasoning.  These  two  methods  I  shall  consider  in  succes- 
sion. The  first  I  shall  call  Simple  Induction ;  or,  because  Lord  Bacon 
used  the  word  induction  to  denote  it,  Baconian  Induction;  or,  because 
until  recently  the  word  induction  has  commonly  been  used  to  denote 
this  method,  Induction,  without  any  qualifying  word.  The  second  I 
shall  call  the  Newtonian  Method,  because  it  was  used  by  Sir  Isaac 
Newton ;  or,  the  hypothetical  method,  because  it  begins  with  an  hypo- 
thesis. 

I.  Simple  induction  is  the  inference  that  because  all  observed  agents 
of  a  particular  kind  under  certain  conditions  manifest  a  particular  pro- 
perty or  produce  a  particular  effect,  therefore  all  agents  of  the  same 
kind,  not  hitherto  observed,  will,  under  the  same  conditions,  everywhere 
and  always  produce  the  same  effect. 

1.  By  induction  we  extend  our  knowledge  from  that  which  has  been 
observed  to  that  which  has  not  been  observed. 

What  is  observed  is  a  uniform  or  unvaried  sequence ;  that  is,  every 
agent  of  a  particular  kind,  under  particular  conditions,  so  far  as 


62  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

/ 

observed,  has  always  produced  the  same  effect.  The  inference  by 
induction  extends  our  knowledge  beyond  observation  to  all  agents  of 
that  kind  under  the  same  conditions  wherever  or  whenever  they  thus 
exist.  All  observed  specimens  of  oxygen  combine  with  iron  in  certain 
definite  proportions.  By  induction  we  infer  that  all  oxygen  in  existence 
combines  with  iron  according  to  the  same  proportions.  A  sequence  ob- 
served in  comparatively  few  specimens  of  oxygen  and  iron,  is  known 
by  induction  to  extend  to  all  the  oxygen  and  all  the  iron  in  the  uni- 
verse. A  sequence  observed  in  comparatively  few  instances  is  known 
by  induction  to  be  a  uniform  sequence  or  law  in  all  instances  of  the 
same  kind. 

Some  logicians  define  "  perfect  induction  "  as  the  knowledge  of  a 
uniform  sequence  obtained  by  observing  every  existing  individual  of 
a  kind ;  for  example,  our  knowledge  that  all  the  planets  of  the  solar 
system  revolve  around  the  sun.  But  this  is  not  induction,  it  is  mere 
observation.  Induction  always  carries  our  knowledge  from  what  has 
been  observed  to  what  has  not  been  observed. 

2.  The  principle  on  which  induction  rests  is  this :  The  same  complex 
of  causes  must  always  and  everywhere  produce  the  same  effect  By  a 
complex  of  causes  I  mean  the  various  causes  and  conditions  which 
concur  in  producing  an  effect.  These  causes  and  conditions  combined  I 
call  a  "  complex  of  causes."  This  accords  with  the  maxim  of  logic, 
"  Causes,  partiales  in  toto  concursu  stant  pro  uno."  My  statement  of  the 
principle,  therefore,  is  scientifically  exact;  and  it  is  necessarily  and 
universally  true.  Rev.  Dr.  Wm.  Thompson  has  stated  the  principle : 
"  Under  the  same  circumstances  and  with  the  same  substance  the  same 
effects  always  result  from  the  same  causes."  All  that  he  specifies,  how- 
ever, is  properly  included  in  the  "  complex  of  causes." 

This  is  a  primitive  principle  regulative  of  all  thought  and  known  by 
rational  intuition.  It  cannot  be  known  by  experience.  It  transcends 
experience.  It  is  impossible  for  man  to  examine  every  portion  of 
oxygen  in  the  universe  to  learn  by  observation  whether  it  supports 
combustion.  No  human  experience  can  have  observed  every  instance 
of  bodies  gravitating  towards  each  other.  No  observation  can  bring 
within  the  knowledge  of  human  experience  to-day  what  will  not  happen 
till  to-morrow. 

Nor  can  this  principle  be  itself  established  by  induction.  Dr.  Wm. 
Thompson  and  J.  S.  Mill,  though  differing  widely  in  their  statements  of 
the  principle,  both  affirm  that  the  principle  itself  is  the  result  of  in- 
duction. *  But  that  the  principle  on  which  all  induction  rests 
should  itself  be  the  product  of  induction  is  as  impossible  as  that  a 

*  Thompson,  Outline  of  Laws  of  Thought,  p.  307;  Mill's  Logic,  B.  iii.  chap.  3,  §  1. 


THE  ACTS  AND  PPvOCESSES  OF  KNOwUjJ^  $%< 

^.    />  *         OB' 

IN.    L,     /I    fc   _ 

child  should  be  its  own  father.  Much  confusion  and 
have  been  occasioned  by  indefinite  or  incorrect  statements  ol 
ciple  on  which  induction  rests.  Perhaps  the  loosest  statement  is  that 
used  by  Reid  and  Stewart :  "  Our  intuitive  conviction  that  the  future 
must  resemble  the  past."  This  is  inadequate,  because  induction  carries 
us  beyond  experience,  not  only  into  the  future,  but  also  into  the  past 
and  into  remote  space ;  also  because  it  does  not  define  in  what  respect 
the  future  must  resemble  the  past.  Thus  loosely  stated  it  is  not  true. 
It  is  not  true  of  civilization  in  every  age  and  country,  that  the  civiliza- 
tion of  every  future  age  will  resemble  it.  It  is  not  true  that  the  sun 
will  rise  every  twenty-four  hours  forever ;  nor  that  it  has  so  risen  in  all 
the  past.  It  is  commonly  said  that  the  principle  of  induction  is,  that 
nature  is  uniform  in  its  operations.  This  also  is  inadequate,  because  it 
does  not  define  with  scientific  exactness  what  the  uniformity  of  nature 
is.  In  fact  some  scientists  have  of  late  endeavored  to  escape  being 
held  to  any  exactness  in  stating  it.  Prof.  W.  G.  Clifford  speaks  of  two 
kinds  of  uniformity,  exact  uniformity  and  reasonable  uniformity,  of 
which  he  says  even  the  first  is  not  entirely  exact.  *  Prof.  Jevons  also 
rests  induction  on  a  loose  statement  of  the  uniformity  of  nature.  "  The 
results  of  imperfect  induction,"  (induction  in  which  observation  has 
not  extended  to  every  individual  of  the  kind)  "  however  well  authenti- 
cated and  verified,  are  never  more  than  probable.  "We  never  can  be 
sure  that  the  future  will  be  as  the  present.  ...  It  is  the  funda- 
mental postulate  of  all  inference  concerning  the  future  that  there  shall 
be  no  arbitrary  change  in  the  subject  of  inference ;  of  the  probability 
or  improbability  of  such  a  change  I  conceive  our  faculties  can  give  no 
estimate.  .  .  .  Inductive  inference  might  attain  to  certainty,  if  our 
knowledge  of  the  agents  existing  through  the  universe  were  complete, 
and  if  we  were  at  the  same  time  certain  that  the  power  which  created 
the  universe  would  allow  it  to  proceed  without  arbitraiy  change."  f 

The  principle  of  the  uniformity*  of  nature,  exactly  and  correctly 
enunciated,  is  simply  the  principle  on  which  induction  rests,  as  I  have 
already  stated  it.  The  uniformity  of  nature  consists  in  the  uniform  or 
invariable  sequence  of  the  same  effect,  whenever  and  wherever  the 
same  complex  of  causes  acts.  A  law  of  nature  is  simply  the  enuncia- 
tion of  this  invariable  sequence  in  respect  to  any  particular  complex 
of  causes  and  its  effects.  Nature  is  uniform  in  the  sense  that  its  laws 
remain  unchanged  whatever  be  the  changes  in  the  actual  succession  of 
phenomena. 

3.  We  can  now  distinguish  induction  from  erroneous  conceptions  of 
it  and  its  functions. 

*  Lectures  and  Essays,  Vol.  i.  p.  141. 

f  Principles  of  Science,  3d  Ed.  pp.  149,  151,  239. 


64  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

Induction  does  not  guarantee  the  correctness  of  our  observation 
either  as  to  what  is  the  complex  of  causes  which  produces  an  effect, 
or  as  to  its  factual  continuance  unchanged.  Certificates  of  the  effi- 
cacy of  a  nostrum  in  curing  a  fever  are  not  a  basis  for  induction, 
because  there  is  no  certainty  that  the  medicine  was  essential  in  the 
complex  of  causes  leading  to  the  convalescence,  and  also  because  what 
is  called  fever  in  one  case  may  have  arisen  from  a  physical  derange- 
ment entirely  different  from  that  which  caused  what  is  called  fever  in 
another.  The  principle  of  induction  is  not  "post  hoc,  ergo  propter 
hoc."  It  presupposes  an  exact  scientific  determination  of  what  the 
complex  of  causes  is  and  of  the  uniform  sequences  in  the  cases  ob- 
served. 

Induction  does  not  guarantee  the  continued  action  of  any  observed 
complex  of  causes.  Another  cause  may  arrest  its  energy,  or  disjoin  its 
elements.  Nor  can  induction  inform  us,  in  that  case,  whether  or  not 
the  complex  cause  will  ever  reappear.  Anthracite  coal  may  be  burned 
and  the  heat  resulting  be  used  to  drive  machinery.  But  the  supply 
may  some  time  be  exhausted ;  then  that  particular  complex  cause  will 
no  more  act.  Lime  and  water  combine  and  generate  heat ;  but  the 
water  of  the  moon,  if  it  ever  existed  there,  has  disappeared,  and  it  is 
now  impossible  to  slake  lime  in  that  satellite.  Even  a  sequence  known 
to  have  been  invariable  during  the  whole  history  of  human  experience 
may  hereafter  be  interrupted.  Causes  already  known  may  be  in  ac- 
tion which,  if  continued,  must  bring  it  to  an  end.  "We  are  now 
told,  in  accordance  with  the  views  of  Thompson  and  Mayer,  that  the 
earth  is  already  oxidated  or  burnt  through  its  crust  half-way  to  the 
core;  that  it  is  grown  so  cool  in  the  course  of  ages  that  it  could  not 
now  melt  a  layer  of  ice  ten  feet  thick  in  a  hundred  years ;  and  that 
the  lunar  tides  which  act  as  brakes  on  the  rotary  motion  imparted  by 
its  primordial  heat  must  in  time  cause  it  to  spin  more  slowly  and 
feebly,  until  at  length  it  shall  flutter  on  its  axis  as  a  dead  world  like 
the  moon,  ever  turning  the  same  pallid  face  to  the  sun."  *  The  sun 
will  then  cease  to  rise  and  set  as  it  has  done  through  all  human  his- 
tory. 

So  long  as  no  cause  is  known  to  exist  which  may  disintegrate  any 
particular  complex  of  causes  or  arrest  its  energy,  we  believe  that  it  AY  ill 
continue  to  exist.  But  even  then  we  cannot  predict  its  continuance 
with  certainty ;  for  some  hitherto  hidden  potency  may  be  discovered 
which  will  arrest  its  action.  Scientific  hypothesis  has  made  us  familiar 
with  aethers  which  transcend  sense ;  and  already  the  conclusion  of  the 
authors  of  the  "Unseen  Universe"  is  seen  to  be  possible;  "that  the 

*Prof.  Shields,  Final  Philosophy,  p.  444. 


THE  ACTS  AND   PROCESSES  OF  KNOWING.  65 

available  energy  of  the  visible  universe  will  ultimately  be  appropriated 
by  the  invisible,  and  we  may  now  perhaps  imagine,  at  least  as  a  possi- 
bility, that  the  separate  existence  of  the  visible  universe  will  share  the 
same  fate,  so  that  we  shall  have  no  huge  useless  inert  mass  existing  in 
after  ages  to  remind  the  passer  by  of  a  form  of  energy  and  a  species  of 
matter  that  is  long  since  out  of  date  and  functionally  effete.  Why 
should  not  the  universe  bury  its  dead  out  of  its  sight  ?  "  * 

4.  But  all  this  brings  no  discredit  on  induction ;  because  induction 
makes  no  claim  to  prove  the  continuity  of  the  existence  or  action  of 
any  particular  complex  cause,  and  also  because  the  law  of  nature  re- 
mains unchanged,  even  after  any  particular  agent  to  which  it  applies 
has  ceased  to  act  or  to  exist.     The  laws  of  nature  are  the  same  in  the 
moon  as  on  the  earth,  although  water  and  living  beings  do  not  there 
exist.     Whatever  doubt  may  arise  from  suspicion  of  inaccuracy  of 
observation  or  of  the  agency  of  unknown  causes,  the  conclusions  of 
true  induction  are  of  unerring  certainty  and  universal  application. 
The  same  complex  cause,  whenever  and  wherever  it  acts,  must  pro- 
duce the  same  effect ;  and  thus  amid  all  the  diversity  of  events  nature 
in  all  its  action  is  uniform  and  orderly  under  law. 

5.  The  true  principle  of  induction  and  of  the  uniformity  of  nature 
gives  no  support  to  the  assertion  that  an  event  contrary  to  the  previous 
universal  experience  of  man  is  incredible  and  cannot  be  believed  on  any 
evidence.     This  assertion  could  have  gained  credence  only  when  founded 
on  some  indefinite  and  incorrect  statement  of  the  principle,  like  that  of 
Reid,  that  the  future  must  resemble  the  past ;  it  has  no  support  from 
the  principle  of  induction  rightly  understood.     When  potassium  was 
discovered,  the  fact  that  it  ignited  in  water  was  contrary  to  the  univer- 
sal experience  of  man  that  water  extinguishes  fire.     Traveling  on  land 
forty  miles  in  an  hour,  communicating  by  telegraph  across  the  ocean, 
hearing  words  spoken  across  a  large  city  were  events  contrary  to  univer- 
sal experience  until  the  respective  inventions  of  the  steam  locomotive, 
the  electric  telegraph,  and  the  telephone. 

So  far  from  conflicting  with  the  uniformity  of  nature,  the  occurrence 
of  unprecedented  events  is  incidental  to  its  progressive  ongoing.  The 
first  plant,  the  first  animal,  the  first  man  was  each  a  new  thing  under 
the  sun. 

Hume  urged  the  objection  that  a  miracle  is  incredible  because  it  is 
contrary  to  universal  experience.  The  objection  is  without  force  against 
the  true  principle  of  induction  and  the  true  conception  of  the  uniform- 
ity of  nature. 

II.  When  effects  are  observed  while  the  cause  and  law  are  unknown, 

*The  Unseen  Universe,  pp.  118,  119. 


66  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL   BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

science  discovers  the  unknown  cause  and  law  by  the  method  of  hypo- 
thesis, deduction  and  verification;  sometimes  called  the  Newtonian 
method,  because  used  by  Newton  in  discovering  that  the  law  of  gravi- 
tation extends  to  the  whole  solar  system.  He  began  with  the  hypothe- 
sis that  gravitation,  already  known  in  the  fall  of  bodies  to  the  earth, 
extended  also  to  the  moon ;  he  then  deduced  what  must  be  the  positions 
of  the  moon  if  the  hypothesis  were  true ;  he  then  verified  it  by  compar- 
ing the  results  of  his  deduction  with  the  actual  positions  of  the  moon 
given  in  astronomical  tables.  The  verification  failed  at  first  on  account 
of  errors  in  the  tables,  but  was  successful  when  the  tables  had  been  cor- 
rected by  more  accurate  observation. 

1.  The  Newtonian  or  hypothetical  method  differs  from  simple  induc- 
tion in  its  data,  its  method  and  its  result.     Its  data  are  observed  effects, 
whose  cause  and  the  law  of  its  uniform  action  are  to  be  discovered. 
The  method  consists  of  three  reflective  processes,  hypothesis,  deduction 
and  verification.     The  result,  if  the  hypothesis  is  verified,  is  the  discov- 
ery of  the  hitherto  unknown  cause  and  its  uniform  action,  that  is,  the 
cause  and  the  law  of  its  action. 

2.  The  hypothetical  method  may  be  exemplified  from  the  uses  of  it 
familiar  in  common  life.     It  is  the  method  of  nomads  and  savages  in 
their  sagacious  tracing  of  a  trail ;  one  of  the  many  stories  of  this  is  the 
following.     A  camel  driver  looking  for  a  lost  camel  asked  an  Arab 
whom  he  met  if  he  had  seen  it.     The  Arab  asked,  "  was  it  lame  in  its 
right  fore  leg,  blind  in  its  left  eye,  with  a  front  tooth  missing,  and 
loaded  with  honey  ? "  The  camel  driver  said,  "  so  you  have  seen  it ;  and 
where  is  it?"  The  Arab  protested  he  had  not  seen  it,  when  the  driver 
charged  him  with  stealing  it,  and  was  proceeding  to  take  him  before  an 
officer  of  justice.     But  the  Arab  explained  that  he  knew  it  was  lame, 
because  the  imprint  of  one  foot  was  uniformly  slighter ;  he  inferred  its 
blindness  from  its  cropping  the  herbage  on  but  one  side  of  the  way ;  he 
knew  that  the  animal  had  lost  a  front  tooth  because  at  every  bite  a  por- 
tion of  the  herbage  remained  uncropped  ;  and  the  gathering  flies  where 
the  honey  had  dripped  made  known  the  nature  of  the  load. 

This  reasoning  of  the  Arab  is  precisely  in  the  hypothetical  method. 
He  observes  the  marks  along  the  way  and  attempts  to  ascertain  their 
cause ;  he  makes  the  hypothesis  that  the  cause  was  a  camel  described  as 
above ;  he  makes  a  deduction  wyhat  sort  of  marks  such  a  camel  would 
make  in  passing,  although  from  his  familiarity  with  camels  this  part  of 
the  process  would  be  so  rapid  he  would  hardly  notice  it ;  then  he  veri- 
fies his  hypothesis  by  accurately  observing  the  facts,  and  finds  that  they 
are  precisely  those  which  a  camel  with  these  characteristics  would 
make.  . 

Just  so  an  investigator  observes  the  complicated  processes  and  effects 


THE  ACTS  AND  PROCESSES  OF  KNOWING.  67 

of  nature,  makes  an  hypothesis  what  the  cause  is  and  how  it  acts,  de- 
duces from  this  what  the  effect  of  a  cause  so  acting  must  be,  and  then 
verifies  the  hypothesis  by  ascertaining  whether  the  effects  actually  ob- 
served are  those  deduced. 

The  same  method  is  used  in  discovering  an  anagram ;  as  if  one  were 
required  to  find  an  anagram  of  Terrible  Poser  and  discovers  it  to  be  Sir 
Robert  PeeL  It  is  noticeable  that  the  one  who  is  quick  in  disco vering  an 
anagram,  is  the  one  who  sees  it  in  the  given  letters ;  that  is,  he  creates 
an  hypothesis.  On  verifying  the  hypothesis  he  may  find  that  it  lacks 
a  letter,  or  has  one  too  many,  and  tries  again.  But  the  one  who  takes 
each  letter  in  succession  as  the  initial  and  tries  to  find  all  the  possible 
combinations,  proceeds  slowly  and,  oftener  than  not,  fails. 

The  same  method  is  used  in  deciphering  an  inscription  hi  an  unknown 
character.  The  study  of  natural  science  is  a  deciphering  of  the  book  of 
nature. 

3.  The  hypothesis  is  a  creation  of  the  imagination,  and,  in  great  dis- 
coveries and  inventions,  it  is  this  creation  which  reveals  the  "  vision  and 
faculty  divine  of  genius."     If  the  marks  of  the  camel  had  been  confus- 
edly intermingled  with  those  of  other  animals  along  the  same  path,  the 
Arab's  problem  would  have  been  more  difficult.     But  in  nature  the 
effects  of  many  undetermined  causes  are  thus  intermingled.     The  ob- 
server must  create  in  imagination  a  definite  system  in  which  a  part  of 
these  heterogeneous  facts  shall  be  conceived  as  effects  of  a  determinate 
complex  of  causes  acting  in  accordance  with  a  determinate  law. 

4.  In  creating  a  correct  hypothesis  the  student  is  aided  by  knowledge 
already  attained ;  as  the  Arab's  knowledge  of  the  camel's  foot  gave  him 
a  clew  to  the  true  hypothesis ;  as  the  trilingual  inscription  on  the  Rosetta 
stone  gave  to  Champollion  the  clew  for  interpreting  other  hieroglyphics. 
It  is  only  they  who  have  been  close  observers  of  nature  who  are  likely 
to  make  hypotheses  worthy  of  examination.     And  they  are  aided  to  do 
it  not  merely  by  their  knowledge,  but  by  their  trained  habits  of  obser- 
vation.    They  are  aided  also  by  analogy.     Things  which  resemble  each 
other  hi  some  particulars  are  conjectured  to  be  alike  in  others.     Thus 
Xewton  conjectured  that  the  diamond  would  be  found  to  be  a  combusti- 
ble from  its  resemblance  to  known  combustibles  in  its  high  power  of  re- 
fracting  light,     And   Franklin  conjectured,  from  the  resemblance  of 
thunder  and  lightning  to  the  phenomena  of  the  discharge  of  a  Leyden 
jar,  that  they  were  effects  of  the  same  cause. 

Hence  scientific  discovery  and  mechanical  invention  are  not  due  mere- 
ly to  "  the  vision  and  faculty  divine  of  genius,"  but  also  to  painstaking 
observation,  intellectual  discipline  and  large,  acquisitions  of  knowledge. 
Says  Tyndall :  "  It  is  by  a  kind  of  inspiration  that  we  rise  from  the  wise 
and  sedulous  contemplation  of  nature  to  the  principles  on  which  the 


68  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

facts  depend.  The  mind  is,  as  it  were,  a  photographic  plate,  which  is 
gradually  cleansed  by  the  effort  to  think  rightly,  and  which  when 
cleansed,  and  not  before,  receives  impressions  from  the  light  of  truth. 
This  passage  from  facts  to  principles  is  called  induction,  which  in  its 
highest  form  is  inspiration ;  but  to  make  it  sure  the  inward  light  must 
be  shown  to  be  in  accord  with  the  outward  fact.  To  prove  or  disprove 
the  induction  we  must  resort  to  deduction  and  experiment."  * 

5.  For  the  verification  of  an  hypothesis  there  are  two  requisites.  Af- 
ter deducing  from  the  hypothesis  all  the  results  implied  in  its  truth,  all 
the  facts  must  be  found  by  observation  to  correspond.  Also,  there  must 
be  no  other  hypothesis  with  the  deduced  results  of  which  the  facts  equal- 
ly correspond.  There  were  formerly  two  hypotheses  as  to  electricity, 
Franklin's  and  Dufay's.  Neither  of  them  sufficiently  accounted  for  the 
facts ;  both  are  displaced  by  the  present  hypothesis.  There  were  two 
hypotheses  of  combustion,  that  of  phlogiston  and  that  of  oxygen.  Af- 
ter long  and  sharp  controversy  among  scientists,  the  latter  has  displaced 
the  former.  When  an  hypothesis  is  verified  in  both  of  the  ways  indi- 
cated it  is  considered  to  be  scientifically  established. 

Verification  is  sometimes  possible  in  a  third  way,  by  bringing  the 
hitherto  unknown  agent  under  actual  observation.  So  the  existence  of 
a  planet  beyond  Uranus  was  inferred  by  the  hypothetical  method  and 
the  planet  was  afterwards  discovered.  In  most  cases  the  object  sought 
cannot  be  brought  under  direct  observation  by  any  means  which  man 
can  command.  Nor  is  this  necessary  to  the  scientific  verification  and 
establishment  of  the  hypothesis.  The  law  that  gravitation  acts  with  a 
force  directly  as  the  mass  and  inversely  as  the  square  of  the  distance  is 
suggested  by  mathematical  principles  and  verified  by  the  accordance 
with  it  of  the  movements  of  the  heavenly  bodies,  and  is  thus  scientifi- 
cally established  beyond  all  doubt.  But  it  is  forever  impossible  by  any 
weighing  or  mechanical  testing  of  forces  to  establish  it  by  direct  obser- 
vation. It  is  equally  impossible  to  establish  the  law  of  the  conservation 
and  correlation  of  force  by  direct  observation  of  the  molecular  action 
into  which  the  motion  of  masses  is  transformed,  or  of  the  transformations 
of  molecular  action,  as  from  electricity  into  heat.  In  like  manner  the 
hypothesis  of  the  aBther  can  never  be  verified  by  direct  observation  of 
the  aether.  There  is  no  ground  for  the  assertion  that  inference  by  the 
method  of  hypothesis  is  not  established  until  the  agent  and  sequence 
sought  are  brought  under  direct  observation ;  and  the  demand  for  verifi- 
cation in  this  third  way  is  no  more  imperative  in  philosophy  and  theo- 
logy than  in  empirical  science.  And  yet  it  is  continually  being  de- 
manded as  essential  in  the  former  by  those  who  in  physical  science  freely 

*  Fragments  of  Science,  p.  60. 


THE  ACTS  AND   PROCESSES  OF  KNOWING.  69 

accept  hypotheses  as  established  which  do  not  'admit  of  verification  in 
this  third  way.  The  value  of  the  method  is  in  carrying  our  knowledge 
beyond  the  range  of  observation. 

6.  The  hypothetical  method  rests  on  the   intuitive  principle  that 
every  effect  must  have  a  cause  adequate  to  produce  it. 

7.  The  hypothetical  method  is  of  fundamental  importance  in  all 
scientific  investigation.     It  has  been  used  in  scientific  discovery  in  all 

and  with  success  corresponding  not  merely  to  the  genius  of 
the  discoverer,  but  to  the  degree  and  exactness  of  knowledge  and  the 
habits  of  accurate  observation  guiding  him  in  creating  his  hypothesis. 
Thus  Archimedes  hypothetically  referred  the  conditions  of  equilibrium 
on  the  lever  to  the  conception  of  pressure,  while  Aristotle  could  see  in 
them  only  the  strange  results  of  the  properties  of  the  circle ;  Pascal 
adopted  correctly  the  hypothesis  of  the  weight  of  the  air  which  his 
predecessors  had  referred  to  nature's  horror  of  a  vacuum ;  Vitellio  and 
Roger  Bacon  referred  the  magnifying  power  of  a  convex  lens  to  the 
refraction  of  the  rays  towards  the  perpendicular,  while  others  con- 
ceived it  to  result  from  the  matter  of  the  lens  irrespective  of  its  form. 
In  view  of  such  facts  Whewell  says :  "  Facts  cannot  be  observed  as 
facts  except  in  virtue  of  the  conceptions  which  the  observer  himself 
unconsciously  supplies ;  and  they  are  not  facts  of  observation  for  any 
purpose  of  discovery,  except  these  familiar  and  unconscious  acts  of 
thought  be  themselves  of  a  just  and  precise  kind.  But  supposing  the 
facts  to  be  adequately  observed,  they  can  never  be  combined  into  any 
new  truth,  except  by  means  of  some  new  conceptions,  clear  and  appro- 
priate."* To  the  same  purport  are  the  words  of  Comte:  "No  real 
observation  of  any  kind  of  phenomena  is  possible,  except  in  so  far  as 

it  is  first  directed  and  finally  interpreted  by  some  theory 

Scientifically  speaking  all  isolated  empirical  observation  is  idle  and 
even  radically  uncertain ;  science  can  use  only  those  observations 

which  are  connected  at  least  hypothetically  with  some  law 

Facts  which  must  form  the  basis  of  a  positive  theory  could  not  be 
collected  to  any  purpose  without  some  preliminary  theory  which  should 
guide  the  collection.  Our  understanding  cannot  act  without  some 
doctrine,  false  or  true,  vague  or  precise,  which  may  concentrate  and 
stimulate  its  efforts  and  afford  ground  enough  for  speculative  con- 
tinuity to  sustain  our  mental  action."  f 

8.  The  Newtonian  method  is  now  commonly  called  induction.     The 
simple  induction  recognized  by  Bacon  is  the  only  induction  which,  as 
peculiar   and   distinct   from   all   other   processes   of  reasoning   or   of 

*  Philosophy  of  Inductive  Sciences,  Vol.  ii.  pp.  189,  206. 

f  Cours  de  Philosophic  Positive,  Tom.  iv.  pp.  418,  665,  667.    Lemons  48,  51,     Mar- 
tineau's  Translation,  pp.  475  and  525. 


70  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

thought,  is  entitled  to  the  name.  It  is  this  which  until  recently  has 
been  called  induction. 

The  application  of  this  name  to  the  Newtonian  method  increases 
the  confusion  of  thought  which  has  existed  on  the  subject,  and  mis- 
leads by  pushing  the  real  induction  into  the  background  and  giving  its 
name  to  a  complex  process  each  of  whose  three  subordinate  processes  is 
already  known  by  its  appropriate  name,  hypothesis,  deduction,  verifica- 
tion. The  first  is  a  creative  act  of  imagination,  the  second  is  deduction 
and  cannot  at  the  same  time  be  induction,  and  the  third  is  observation 
and  a  comparison  of  what  we  observe  with  what  we  have  deduced. 
Prof.  Jevons  regarding  this  process  as  induction,  is  driven  to  the  con- 
clusion, "  If  I  have  taken  a  correct  view  of  logical  method,  there  is 
really  no  such  thing  as  a  distinct  process  of  induction."  * 

The  reaction  against  the  Baconian  induction  in  recent  scientific 
thought  is  worthy  of  attention.  It  is  remarkable  that  it  is  against  the 
induction  of  Lord  Bacon,  so  long  glorified  as  the  epoch-making  thought 
which  rescued  the  human  mind  from  the  hypotheses  and  deductions  of 
scholasticism  and  metaphysics,  and  turned  it  in  the  direction  of  dis- 
covery and  of  useful  knowledge.  It  is  remarkable  that  the  reaction  is 
to  the  methods  of  hypothesis  and  deduction,  once  so  much  under 
opprobrium  as  the  methods  of  metaphysics  that  the  appellation  "  induc- 
tive," with  the  Baconian  meaning,  was  given  to  the  physical  sciences 
as  marking  their  distinctive  preeminence.  Newton  himself,  with  sin- 
gular unconsciousness,  felt  obliged  to  utter  the  disclaimer,  "  hypotheses 
non  fingo ; "  and  later  discoverers  by  the  hypothetical  method  have 
apologized  for  its  use.  Since  the  physical  sciences  have  claimed  and 
do  claim  preeminent  and  even  exclusive  certainty  and  value  as  being 
founded  on  observation,  it  .is  remarkable  that  this  reaction  is  away 
from  this  recognition  of  the  preeminence  of  observation  and  to  a  de- 
preciation of  it  as  "  idle  and  even  radically  uncertain,"  and  of  no 
scientific  "  use,"  except  as  "  directed  and  interpreted  by  some  theory." 
And  it  is  remarkable  that  after  all  this  reactionary  change,  scientists 
insist  on  applying  the  old  name  induction  to  the  method  of  hypothesis, 
deduction  and  verification,  as  if  fearing  that  the  physical  sciences 
would  lose  prestige  if  they  were  known  to  be  preeminently  sciences 
of  hypothesis,  deduction  and  verification  called  by  their  proper  names. 
"  Wide  is  the  range  of  words  this  wTay  and  that."  f 

9.  Neither  induction  nor  the  hypothetical  method  is  peculiar  to  in- 
vestigations in  physical  science.  Each  is  a  method  spontaneously  used 
by  the  human  mind  in  investigations  in  sciences  of  every  kind  and  in 

*  Princ.  of  Science,  p.  579. 

f  'ETTCWV  6e  TroAi-f  vo/zof  IvQa  nal  ivda.     Iliad  xx.  249. 


THE  ACTS  AXD  PROCESSES   OF  KNOWING.  71 

the  common  affairs  of  life.  Lord  Bacon  did  not  invent  nor  discover 
the  method  of  induction.  It  had  always  been  in  use.  He  guarded  the 
minds  of  men  against  false  reasoning,  turned  them  to  the  study  of  per- 
sons and  things  rather  than  of  notions  and  words,  and  to  the  study  of 
reality  in  its  bearings  on  the  conduct  of  life  and  the  welfare  of  man. 
Xewton  did  not  discover  nor  first  use  the  hypothetical  n^ethod.  Des- 
cartes distinctly  recognizes  it  in  his  "  Dissertatio  de  Methodo ; "  and  it 
was  used  in  discoveries  both  by  Lord  Bacon's  predecessors  and  suc- 
cessors. Lange,  after  noticing  these  facts,  makes  the  extraordinary 
mistake  of  saving  that  "  Newton  reverted  to  Bacon."  *  The  truth  is 
that,  independently  of  air  logical  theories,  this  method  and  the  simple 
induction  of  Lord  Bacon  are  the  methods  spontaneously  used  by  the 
human  mind  in  investigating  facts,  whether  in  science  or  hi  the  prac- 
tical affairs  of  life. 

10.  Correct  hypotheses  and  the  discoveries  involved  in  them  have 
often  been  suggested  by  genius,  long  before  the  hypotheses  have  been 
verified  and  the  discoveries  made.  Very  striking  is  Lord  Bacon's  anti- 
cipation of  the  modern  discovery  that  heat  is  motion.  In  explaining  his 
suggestion  of  this  fact,  he  says  emphatically ;  "  it  must  not  be  thought 
that  heat  generates  motion  or  motion  heat  (though  in  some  respects  this 
be  true)  but  that  the  very  essence  of  heat,  or  the  substantial  self  (quid 
ipsuni)  of  heat  is  motion  and  nothing  else."f  Descartes  anticipated  the 
vortex  rings  of  Sir  Win.  Thompson.^  Aristotle  anticipated  Columbus. 
He  says  that  the  earth  must  be  spherical,  and  proves  it  from  the  ten- 
dency of  things  in  all  places  downwards  and  from  the  spherical  form  of 
the  earth  shown  in  eclipses  of  the  moon ;  and  he  argues  that  it  is  com- 
paratively small,  because  in  traveling  north  or  south  the  position  of  the 
stars  changes,  and  stars  are  seen  in  Greece  or  Cyprus,  which  are  not  seen 
in  countries  further  north ;  and  then  says ;  "  Wherefore  we  may  judge 
that  those  persons  who  connect  the  region  in  the  neighborhood  of  the 
pillars  of  Hercules  with  that  towards  India  and  who  assert  that  in  this 
way  the  sea  is  one,  do  not  assert  things  very  improbable."  §  Anticipa- 
tions of  scientific  discovery  sometimes  come  from  speculative  philosophy. 
Schelling  suggested  the  identity  of  the  forces  of  magnetism,  electricity, 
and  chemical  affinity;  ||  Kant  in  his  Naturyeschichte  des  Himmels  anti- 
cipated the  nebular  theory  of  Laplace.  Sometimes  these  anticipations 

*  Geschichte  des  Materialismus,  i.  239,  240. 
t  Xovum  Organum,  B.  II.  20,  Basil  Montagu's  Edition. 
J  Wurtz,  Atomic  Theory ;  Cleminshaw's  Trans,  p.  329. 

£  Aristotle  de  Coelo,  Lib.  14,  Ed.  Casaub.  p.  290,  291,  quoted  Whewell  Hist,  of 
Inductive  Sciences,  Vol.  I.  p.  133. 
||  Whewell's  Philosophy  of  the  Inductive  Sciences,  B.  V.  Chap.  II.  12. 


72  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

are  made  by  poetical  genius.     Milton  anticipated  the  extension  of  the 
law  of  attraction  to  the  solar  system : 

"What  if  the  sun 

Be  centre  to  the  world ;  and  other  stars, 
By  his  attractive  virtue  and  their  own 
Incited,  dance  about  him  various  rounds." 

g  15.    Relation  of  Reflective  Thought  to  Intuition. 

I.  Reflection  or  thought  gives  no  elemental  object  of  knowledge.  The 
objects  about  which  we  can  think  are  all  first  given  in  intuition. 

1.  This  maxim  is  true  only  when  intuition  is  understood  to  include 
sense-perception,  self-consciousness  and  rational  intuition.     The  maxim 
that  all  the  elemental  objects  of  thought  are  given  in  the  primitive 
knowledge  is  not  disputed  in  any  school.     The  difference  is  as  to  the 
range  of  the  primitive  knowledge.     If  it  is  limited  to  sensible  objects 
then  thought  can  concern  itself  with  these  alone.     If  man  also  has  intui- 
tive knowledge  of  himself  in  his  various  mental  acts  and  states,  then 
these  are  legitimate  objects  of  thought.     If  he  has  also  intuitive  know- 
ledge of  principles  of  reason  asserting  themselves  in  his  consciousness 
and  regulating  all  his  thinking,  then  he  must  take  cognizance  of  reason, 
and  its  fundamental  realities,  truth,  law,  perfection,  worth,  the  absolute, 
as  "  for  us "  *  positively  known  as  the  fundamental  reality,  the  supreme 
and  transcendent  truth ;  and  must  connote  all  particular  realities  in 
their  relations  to  these  universal  and  all-regulative  norms. 

Pertinent  here  and  profoundly  significant  is  the  seemingly  playful 
definition  which  Socrates  gives  of  thought.  It  is  "the  conversation 
which  the  soul  holds  with  itself.  The  soul  when  thinking  appears  to  me 
to  be  just  talking ;  asking  questions  of  itself  and  answering  them."  f  To 
the  empiricist  thought  is  inspecting,  weighing  and  measuring  that  which 
seems  external  to  us.  But  in  truth  it  is  only  under  the  regulation  of 
the  principles  and  laws  of  reason  that  thought  can  conclude  in  knowledge 
or  comprehend  the  outward  in  science.  Thought  is  "  the  large  discourse 
of  reason,"  and  is  fruitful  only  because  "  mind  is  the  measure  of  all 
things."  It  is  fruitless  surveying  which  takes  no  note  of  the  relation  of 
the  surface  to  the  chain  by  wrhich  it  is  measured. 

2.  The  maxim  is  true  only  of  the  primitive  or  elemental  realities. 
These  realities  can  be  defined  or  described  only  by  referring  to  the  per- 
son's own  intuitive  knowledge  of  them ;  as  the  odor  of  a  rose  or  the 

*  "  I  am  far  from  implying  that  a  supra-sensible  does  not  exist.  I  only  affirm  that 
it  does  not  exist  for  us  as  an  object  of  positive  knowledge,  though  forced  upon  us  as  a 
negative  conception."  Lewes :  Problems,  &c.,  First  series,  Part  II.  Problem  I.  Chap. 
III.  26.  Vol.  i.  229.  Vol.  ii.  p.  9. 

f  Theaetetus,  190. 


THE  ACTS  AND  PROCESSES  OF  KNOWING.  73 

taste  of  honey ;  the  person's  own  reason,  free  will  and  affections ;  the 
primitive  principles  which  he  necessarily  believes,  and  which  regulate 
his  thinking ;  power  which  himself  exerts ;  bodies  extended  in  and  occu- 
pying space  known  by  resisting  his  own  power.  Thought  can  create 
new  combinations  of  the  reality  known  in  intuition  ;  but  it  cannot  put 
into  the  creation  any  new  element  of  reality  not  intuitively  known ;  for 
example,  qualities  of  bodies  which  might  be  perceived  by  a  sixth 
sense. 

II.  Within  these  limitations  knowledge  is  greatly  enlarged  by  re- 
flective thought. 

Thought  apprehends,  differentiates  and  comprehends  the  nebulous 
matter  given  in  intuition,  and  thus  makes  knowledge  definite,  distinct 
and  systematic. 

Thought  stimulates  and  guides  the  use  of  our  intuitive  power  in 
observation,  invents  instruments  to  aid  our  senses,  and  thus  leads  to 
the  discovery  of  reality  before  unknown. 

Thought  gives  us  knowledge  through  general  notions  and  language, 
and  gives  us  also  the  sciences  of  grammar,  philology,  logic  and  rhetoric, . 
which  treat  of  thought  and  language. 

From  the  forms  of  space  and  number  thought  develops  the  whole  of 
mathematics,  geometrical  and  arithmetical ;  and  applying  its  demon- 
strations to  nature  in  quantities  of  tune  and  space  measures  everything 
from  the  action  of  molecules  and  the  time  of  conveying  sensations,  to 
the  masses  and  motions  of  planets  and  suns. 

Thought  discovers  properties,  laws  and  bodies,  of  the  same  kind 
with  those  already  known,  which  have  never  been  known  by  observa- 
tion. From  the  knowledge  of  a  property  in  a  few  bodies  of  a  particu- 
lar kind  induction  infers  the  existence  of  that  property  in  all  bodies  of 
the  same  kind.  From  effects  we  infer  causes;  as  the  spectroscope 
reveals  in  the  sun  gold,  hydrogen,  and  other  varieties  of  matter  well 
known  on  earth  ;  as  arrow-heads  and  other  implements  reveal  the  early 
existence  of  man  and  subvert  the  previous  fixed  belief  of  mankind ;  as 
fossils  and  strata  reveal  the  history  of  the  globe  through  strange  muta- 
tions and  innumerable  ages  before  any  man  existed  to  observe  them. 
From  causes  and  known  laws  we  can  deduce  effects  and  sequences. 
By  resemblances,  analogies,  and  a  knowledge  of  many  facts  it  is  possible 
to  create  in  imagination  hypotheses ;  and  the  creations  of  man's  imagi- 
nation are  found  to  be  the  same  with  the  creations  of  God  embodying 
his  own  ideas  in  nature. 

Thought  discovers  new  simple  bodies  which  have  never  been  ob- 
served before.  Crooke  observing  a  new  line  in  the  spectroscope 
affirmed  the  existence  in  the  sun  of  an  unknown  metal,  which  was 
afterwards  discovered  on  earth  and  named  Thallium.  Frankland  and 


74  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

Lockyer  on  similar  evidence  announced  an  unknown  substance  which 
they  proposed  to  call  Helium. 

Thought  infers  and  recognizes  as  the  basis  of  science  the  existence 
of  extra-sensible  reality,  of  bodies  so  small  and  motions  so  rapid  that 
the  senses  cannot  perceive  them ;  as  molecules  and  aethers ;  vibrations 
of  air  so  rapid  that  the  ear  cannot  hear  them,  and  of  light  so  rapid 
that  the  eye  cannot  see  them.  It  also  discovers  the  action  of  gravita- 
tion, the  law  of  which  could  never  have  been  discovered  by  observa- 
tion, which  is  seemingly  a  force  exerted  by  a  body  where  it  is  not 
present,  which  is  not  obstructed  by  interposing  bodies,  which  seems  to 
act  instantaneously  so  that  every  body  in  the  universe  instantly  takes 
cognizance,  so  to  speak,  of  the  change  of  position  of  every  other  body 
and  moves  accordingly,  and  which  acting  continuously  is  never  ex- 
pended, never  fed,  never  reproduced.  These  and  similar  results  are 
entirely  beyond  the  range  of  human  senses  and  observation,  and  cannot 
even  be  pictured  in  imagination.  Some  of  them  seem  contradictory 
and  impossible.  Yet  after  citing  some  of  these  inferences  and  calcula- 
•  tions  of  science,  Prof.  Jevons  says :  "  We  see  that  mere  difficulties  of 
conception  must  not  discredit  a  theory  which  otherwise  agrees  with 
facts."  But  certainly  if  thought  can  establish  as  science  results  like 
these  transcending  all  observation,  then  the  hypothesis  that  there  is  a 
spirit  in  man  is  a  legitimate  hypothesis  and  may  be  established  as  a 
well-grounded  basis  of  belief  and  action. 

Thus  thought  reveals  reality  before  unknown  and  enlarges  know- 
ledge. We  may  say  that  there  is  nothing  in  a  woolen  garment  except 
what  was  first  in  the  wool.  The  process  of  carding  which  separates 
the  fibres  and  arranges  them  parallel  to  each  other,  the  spinning  that 
twists  the  fibres  into  yarn,  the  weaving  which  unites  the  yarn  into 
cloth,  the  skill  of  the  workman  who  cuts  it  into  a  garment  have  indeed 
acted  only  on  the  material  that  was  in  the  wool,  and  yet  there  is  very 
much  in  the  garment  which  was  not  in  the  wool.  So  it  is  with  thought. 
A  guest  in  a  great  house  rich  in  furniture,  paintings  and  bric-a-brac 
will  day  after  day  discover  previously  unnoticed  articles  of  interest 
which  have  all  the  time  been  before  his  eyes  in  the  rooms.  So  is  man- 
kind in  the  universe,  from  generation  to  generation,  making  new  dis- 
coveries of  its  richness.  These  scientific  discoveries  are  mostly  made 
by  thought.  The  larger  part  of  every  science  consists  of  facts,  gen- 
eralizations, laws  and  inferences  never  discovered  by  observation  or 
even  transcending  the  range  of  observation.  Says  Lewes :  "  We  have 
positive  proof  that  the  sensible  world  comprises  only  a  portion  and  an 
insignificant  portion  of  existence  .  .  .  there  is  therefore  an  extra- 
sensible  existence  revealed  through  various  indications.  .  .  .  We 
must  ascertain  how  the  vast  outlying  province  of  the  invisible  can  be 


THE  ACTS  AND  PROCESSES  OF  KNOWING.  75 

accessible."  *  It  is  true  that  the  heavens  disclosed  their  glory  to  man 
in  his  savage  state  and  that  all  the  great  movements  of  planets  and 
stars  went  on  before  his  eyes.  But  it  would  be  foolish  to  say  that  all 
that  is  contained  in  modern  astronomy  was  given  in  the  intuition  of 
savage  man,  or  in  the  mere  intuition  of  any  man.  Yet  it  is  true  that 
every  elemental  reality  about  which  we  think  in  all  sciences  is  given  in 
intuition. 

III.  The  mind  can  project  its  thought  into  the  unknown  only  by 
retaining  firm  foothold  in  the  known. 

"  Of  God  above  or  man  below, 
What  can  we  reason  but  from  what  we  know  ?  " 

It  is  impossible  to  have  positive  thought  of  anything  except  as  we 
attribute  to  it  something  already  known.  This  is  exemplified  by  the 
partial  agnostics  who  admit  the  existence  of  absolute  being,  but  affirm 
that  we  can  have  no  knowledge  what  it  is.  Prof.  Tyndall  says :  "  The 
whole  process  of  evolution  is  the  manifestation  of  a  power  absolutely 
inscrutable  to  the  intellect  of  man."  f  With  singular  simplicity  and 
unconsciousness  he  affirms  absolute  inscrutableness,  and  yet  defines  the 
inscrutable  object  as  "a power"  and  declares  that  it  is  a  manifested 
power.  H.  Spencer  says :  "  We  are  obliged  to  regard  every  pheno- 
menon as  a  manifestation  of  some  power  ;  phenomena  being,  so  far  as 
we  can,  ascertain,  unlimited,  we  are  obliged  to  regard  this  power  as 
omnipresent ;  and  criticism  teaches  us  that  it  is  wholly  incomprehensi- 
ble." I  Here  again  an  object  "  wholly  incomprehensible  "  is  declared 
to  be  a  power,  and  a  power  that  is  manifested  and  omnipresent.  These 
men  delude  themselves  with  supposing  that  they  can  rest  their  thought 
respecting  the  great  problem  of  the  universe  in  the  partial  agnosticism 
which  affirms  the  existence  of  the  absolute  ground  of  the  universe  but 
denies  all  knowledge  of  what  that  absolute  ground  is.  In  the  very 
affirmation  of  their  ignorance  of  what  this  absolute  ground  of  the  uni- 
verse is  they  are  obliged  to  use  language  attributing  to  this  unknown, 
properties  already  known.  Thought  can  enlarge  the  area  of  know- 
ledge ;  but  it  is  a  law  of  thought  that  the  unknown  can  be  discovered 
only  in  some  unity  of  thought  with  the  already  known. 

But  Mr.  Spencer  further  says :  "  Though  the  absolute  cannot  in  any 
manner  or  degree  be  known,  in  the  strict  sense  of  knowing,  yet  we  find 
its  positive  existence  is  a  necessary  datum  of  consciousness ;  so  long  as 
consciousness  continues,  we  cannot  for  an  instant  rid  ourselves  of  this 
datum ;  and  thus  the  belief  which  this  datum  constitutes  has  a  higher 

*  Problems  of  Life  and  Mind,   Vol.  i.  pp.  238,  233. 
t  Address  before  British  Association  in  Belfast,  1.S74. 
I  First  Principles.     Part  I.  Chap.  v.     §  27,  p.  99. 


76  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

warran^  than  any  other  whatever."  *  But  since  Mr.  Spencer  himself 
cannot  retain  the  thought  of  this  absolute  being  without  attributing  to 
it  known  qualities,  it  follows,  on  his  own  principles,  that  the  funda- 
mental datum  of  consciousness,  the  best  warranted  of  all  beliefs,  is  the 
belief  in  the  existence  of  absolute  being  having  one  or  more  known 
attributes.  And  if  it  is  legitimate  and  necessary  for  Spencer  and  Tyn- 
dall  to  affirm  that  the  absolute  being  is  a  power,  because  it  is  the  ulti- 
mate ground  of  the  power  manifested  in  the  universe,  it  is  equally 
legitimate  and  necessary  to  affirm  that  the  absolute  being  is  a  rational 
power,  because  it  is  the  ultimate  ground  of  the  rational  power  mani- 
fested in  the  universe.  '  And  while  the  partial  agnosticism  thus  con- 
tradicts and  nullifies  itself,  the  theist  is  entirely  self-consistent.  While 
he  holds  with  Spencer  that  the  existence  of  the  absolute  is  a  necessary 
datum  of  consciousness  and,  as  thus  given  in  intuition,  a  real  object  of 
thought,  he  also  holds  that,  since  it  is  the  original  ground  or  cause  of 
the  universe,  it  must  contain  in  itself  the  original  potencies  which 
account  for  all  that  is  manifested  in  the  universe ;  therefore  must  con- 
tain the  potency  of  reason  not  less  than  of  power.  And  this  is  a  legi- 
timate process  of  thinking,  respecting  an  object  already  given  in 
intuition,  by  inferring  the  unknown  from  the.  known. 

IV.  Reflective  knowledge  is  always  preceded  by  primitive  or  sponta- 
neous knowledge. 

Knowledge  given  in  intuition  and  retained  and  represented  in  mem- 
ory, may  be  called  spontaneous,  implicit  or  unelaborated  knowledge ; 
after  its  objects  have  been  apprehended,  discriminated  and  integrated 
in  thought,  it  may  be  called  reflective,  explicit  or  elaborate  knowledge. 
The  spontaneous  knowledge  is  sometimes  called  belief  or  faith. 

That  reflective  knowledge  must  always  be  preceded  by  implicit  or 
spontaneous  knowledge  is  a  necessary  inference  from  our  discussion. 
The  principle  may  help  us  in  deciding  the  old  question  whether  faith 
precedes  intelligence. 

1.  If  the  spontaneous  knowledge  is  called  faith  or  belief  and  the 
reflective  knowledge  is  called  intelligence,  then  the  maxim  is  univer- 
sally true  that  faith  must  precede  knowledge  (crede  ut  intelligas). 
Many  writers  designate  rational  intuition  as  faith  or  belief;  these 
intuitions  are  frequently  called  primary  beliefs.  Others  give  the 
name  faith  or  belief  to  both  rational  and  presentative  intuition. 
Among  these  are  Clement  of  Alexandria,  and  in  modern  times,  F.  H. 
Jacobi,  J.  G.  Fichte  and  Rothe.  .To  these  may  be  added  Dr.  Dorner, 
who  says :  "  Jacobi  rightly  says  that  even  our  certainty  of  the  world 
of  sense  is  a  faith"  (ein  Glauben).f  So  far  as  the  wTord  faith  is  used  to 

*  First  Principles,  p.  98,  ?  27. 

f  Christliche  Glaubenslehre,  §  1 ;  2.     §4;  6. 


THE  ACTS  AND  PROCESSES  OF   KNOWING.  77 

denote  all  primitive  knowledge  it  is  true  that  faith  precedes  intelli- 
gence or  reflective  knowledge.  But  only  in  this  sense  is  the  maxim 
admissible  as  true. 

Thus  understood,  the  maxim  cannot  be  assumed  to  mean  that 
intuition,  because  it  is  called  belief,  is  less  really  knowledge  than  the 
intelligence  elaborated  by  reflective  thought.  Since  all  the  objects  of 
thought  and  all  the  principles  which  regulate  thinking  are  given  in 
intuition  and  all  inference  is  from  the  known  to  the  previously 
unknown,  thought  can  never  lift  itself  to  a  certainty  and  reality  of 
knowledge  above  that  of  intuition,  but  can  reach  only  a  greater  clear- 
ness, definiteness  and  comprehensiveness  of  systematic  knowledge. 
There  can  be  no  more  stability  in  the  superstructure,  however  high, 
than  in  the  foundation.  Intuitive  knowledge  and  reflective  do  not 
differ  as  knowledge,  but  only  in  the  fact  that  the  former  of  the  two  is 
self-evident  knowledge,  the  latter  is  the  result  of  a  process  of  thought. 
Whether  the  names  faith  or  belief  shall  be  given  to  the  former  instead 
of  or  in  addition  to  the  names  intuitive,  or  primitive  or  spontaneous 
knowledge,  is  not  a  question  of  psychological  fact,  but  of  nomenclature. 
One  obvious  objection  is  that,  if  the  name  knowledge  is  withheld  from 
intuition  and  memory  and  given  only  to  reflective  intelligence,  the 
impression  must  be  made  that  the  latter  alone  is  knowledge  and  the 
former  is  not.  In  fact  this  impression  is  widely  spread. 

But  we  cannot  change  a  common  use  of  language.  Therefore  in 
this  application  of  the  terms  faith  and  belief,  they  should  be  used 
interchangeably  with  intuitive,  self-evident,  primitive  knowledge  and 
similar  designations ;  thus  showing  that  they  mean  nothing  less  than 
knowledge  and  are  applied  alike  to  primitive  knowledge  in  every 
form,  whether  presentative  or  representative,  whether  the  intuition 
of  the  outward  world,  or  of  ourselves  in  our  mental  operations,  or  of 
universal  principles,  or  of  the  existence  of  absolute  unconditioned 
being. 

It  follows  that  the  maxim  that  faith  precedes  intelligence  has  no 
peculiar  application  to  religious  knowledge.  This  like  all  other 
knowledge  begins  as  primitive,  implicit,  spontaneous  knowledge,  and 
is  elaborated  into  clear,  definite  and  systematic  knowledge.  This  fact 
does  not  disparage  the  reality  of  religious  knowledge  any  more  than 
of  all  other  knowledge ;  for  all  knowledge  begins  in  the  same  way. 
Physical  science  begins  in  faith  as  really  as  theology.  If  we  choose 
to  call  the  primitive,  implicit  religious  knowledge  faith,  our  giving  it 
that  name  does  not  change  its  character  as  knowledge,  nor  distinguish 
it  as  different  in  this  respect  from  other  knowledge. 

2.  The  recognition  of  a  faith-faculty  as  the  distinctive  organ  of 
religious  knowledge  is  inadmissible. 


78  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

The  very  conception  of  a  "  faculty  "  as  false  and  misleading.  The 
mind  no  more  has  faculties  than  oxygen  or  electricity.  The  mind  in 
its  indivisible  oneness  reveals  itself  in  acts  and  processes  which  we  can 
note  and  classify.  From  this  misconception  of  the  mind  as  divided 
into  faculties  the  doctrine  of  a  faith-faculty  derives  its  chief  signifi- 
cance. It  is  usually  urged  by  persons  who  already  admit  that  God  is 
not  properly  an  object  of  knowledge  and  who  grasp  at  a  faith-faculty 
whereby  to  retain  their  hold  of  him  in  an  indeterminate  and  uncertain 
belief. 

If,  however,  the  advocate  of  a  faith-faculty  has  divested  himself  of 
these  misconceptions  and  uses  the  word  faculty  merelyas  a  convenient 
name  for  the  mind  as  it  manifests  itself  in  a  certain  class  of  operations, 
still  there  is  no  place  for  a  faith-faculty.  For  intuition  presentative 
and  rational,  includes  all  primitive  and  self-evident  knowledge ;  and 
if  the  knowledge  of  God  is  neither  primitive  nor  reflective  knowledge, 
but  a  faith  distinguished  from  both,  then  again  it  is  excluded  from 
knowledge  properly  so  called  and  stands  by  itself  as  a  belief  that  is 
not  knowledge.  Accordingly,  this  belief  which  arises  from  the  faith- 
faculty  is  often  divorced  from  the  intellect  and  avowedly  grounded  in 
feeling  alone.  But  beaten  on  by  the  fierce  intellectual  light  of  the 
present  time  religious  belief  cannot  live  if  avowedly  it  is  cut  off  from 
the  intellect  and  has  not  its  roots  in  reason.  Such  a  belief  concedes 
every  thing  to  the  skeptic  who  admits  that  religious  sentiments  are 
constitutional  to  man  and  that  man  may  properly  shape  an  object  for 
them  in  the  imagination  varying  with  the  culture  of  each  age ;  but 
who  strenuously  refuses  it  any  place  in  the  sphere  of  the  intellect  and 
of  knowledge.  Thus  the  doctrine  of  the  faith-faculty  acknowledges  an 
unresolvable  antithesis  of  reason  and  faith.  On  the  contrary,  the 
demand  of  the  age  and  the  work  imperative  on  theism  is  to  demon- 
strate the  synthesis  of  faith  and  reason.  This  can  be  done  only  by 
showing  that  faith  in  God  is  itself  the  act  of  reason  in  the  highest 
manifestation  of  its  rational  power.  And  it  may  also  be  shown  that 
human  reason  must  have  the  knowledge  of  reason  absolute  and  su- 
preme in  order  to  maintain  its  own  rational  power  to  know. 

As  man  knows  himself  rational,  so  he  knows  himself  religious.  As 
he  knows  himself  in  contact  with  the  external  world  through  sense,  so 
he  knows  himself  in  contact  with  God  through  his  spiritual  constitu- 
tion. In  the  normal  unfolding  of  his  own  constitution  he  finds  himself 
in  the  presence  of  absolute  being.  In  the  normal  unfolding  of  his 
consciousness  of  himself  he  finds  in  himself  the  consciousness  of  God. 
The  primitive  knowledge  of  the  Absolute  is  a  part  of  his  primitive 
knowledge  through  intuition.  All  primitive  knowledge  is  more  or  less 
mixed  with  feeling ;  there  is, primitive  knowledge  in  all  feeling.  But 


THE  ACTS  AND  PROCESSES  OF  KNOWING.  79 

this  is  not  peculiar  to  religious  knowledge;  it  is  equally  true  of  all 
knowledge. 

The  denial  of  a  special  faith-faculty  as  the  organ  of  religious  belief, 
and  the  identification  of  religious  belief  with  primitive  knowledge  does 
not  deny  the  dependence  of  our  knowledge  of  God  on  the  awakening 
of  the  spiritual  life  by  the  testimony  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  or  by  any 
influences  which  quicken  and  illuminate  the  human  mind;  nor  does  it 
deny  the  knowledge  of  God  in  experience  whereby  we  acquaint  our- 
selves with  him  and  are  at  peace.  However  this  knowledge  is  origi- 
nated it  must  follow  the  law  of  all  knowing ;  it  must  begin  as  primitive, 
implicit,  unelaborated  knowledge,  merged  in  the  religious  experience 
and  not  at  first  clearly  apprehended  in  consciousness,  nor  discrimi- 
nated, defined  and  integrated  in  a  system.  The  defenders  of  Christian 
theism,  who  admit  that  theism  rests  on  a  faith  which  is  not  knowledge, 
are  misled  by  a  false  theory  of  knowledge  and  surrender  the  very 
citadel  of  their  defences.  The  late  Professor  T.  H.  Green,  of  Oxford, 
truly  said :  "  Under  different  relations  and  in  different  modes  of  itself, 
reason  is  the  source  alike  of  faith  and  knowledge."  ..."  Christianity 
is  cheaply  honored  when  it  is  made  exceptional ;  God  is  not  wTisely 
trusted  when  declared  unintelligible. 

'  Such  honor  rooted  in  dishonor  stands ; 
Such  faith  unfaithful  makes  us  falsely  true.' 

God  is  forever  reason;  and  his  communication,  his  revelation  is  of 
Reason."  The  empirical  knowledge  of  nature  rests  on  faith  in  the 
same  sense  in  which  theism  rests  on  faith. 

3.  The  word  faith  has  been  used  with  various  meanings ;  and  this  is 
a  reason  why,  so  far  as  possible,  we  should  avoid  using  it  as  a  synonym 
for  intuition  or  primitive  knowledge.  It  is  used  to  denote  trust  which 
is  the  condition  of  justification ;  also  to  denote  belief  of  testimony  on 
the  authority  of  the  witness  ;  also  belief  on  the  authority  of  the  Church 
or  of  divine  revelation.  The  maxim  "  crede  ut  intelligas  "  has  as  many 
different  meanings,  each  of  special  application,  and  each  irrelevant  to 
the  general  question  which  we  are  considering  as  to  what  precedes 
reflective  knowledge  in  general  or  reflective  religious  knowledge  in 
particular.  Hence  has  arisen  great  confusion  in  the  discussion  of  the 
subject.  Thus  Hamilton  confuses  himself.  After  naming  many  philo- 
sophers, ancient  and  modern,  who  have  used  the  words  belief  or  faith 
to  denote  "  The  original  warrants  of  cognition,"  that  is,  the  principles 
of  rational  intuition,  he  adds  the  following :  "  St.  Augustine  accurately 
says,  '  We  know  what  rests  on  reason;  we  believe  what  rests  on  author- 
ity.' But  reason  itself  must  rest  at  last  on  authority ;  for  the  original 
data  of  reason  do  not  rest  on  reason,  but  are  necessarily  accepted  by 
reason  on  the  authority  of  what  is  beyond  itself.  .  .  .  Thus  we  must 


80  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF   THEISM. 

philosophically  admit  that  belief  is  the  primary  condition  of  reason, 
and  not  reason  the  ultimate  ground  of  belief.  We  are  compelled  to 
surrender  the  proud  '  Intellige  ut  oredas '  of  Abelard,  to  content  our- 
selves with  the  humble  '  Crede  ut  intelligas  '  of  Anselm."  *  The  quota- 
tion is  entirely  irrelevant,  for  Augustine  is  speaking  of  the  authority 
of  the  Church.  The  same  is  true  of  Anselm  and  Abelard.  The  doc- 
trine early  appeared  that  the  church  had  authority  to  declare  the  mind 
of  the  Spirit  and  the  meaning  of  the  word  of  God.  The  "  crede  ut 
intelligas"  then  meant,  Believe  implicitly  what  the  church  teaches 
without  personal  investigation  and  conviction  of  its  truth.  The  intelli- 
gence of  reflective  thought  following  the  belief  was  merely  a  reverent 
ascertaining  of  what  the  church  meant.  Abelard  asserted  the  right  to 
investigate  the  truth  of  the  doctrine  of  the  church  before  believing  it. 
It  is  curious  to  note  the  special  pleading  by  which  Hamilton  endeavors 
to  apply  this  utterly  irrelevant  definition  to  "  the  original  warrants  of 
cognition." 

At  the  Reformation  the  Bible  as  the  word  of  God,  accredited  and 
illuminated  by  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit,  was  recognized,  instead  of 
the  church,  as  the  authoritative  rule  of  faith  and  practice.  But  the 
testimony  of  the  Spirit  gradually  receded  in  the  Protestant  theological 
thinking  until  the  letter  of  the  scripture,  supposed  according  to  an 
arid  theory  of  verbal  inspiration  to  be  itself  the  testimony  of  the 
Spirit,  was  recognized  as  the  authoritative  rule  of  faith  and  practice, 
and  thus  became  the  formal  principle  of  Protestantism.  Belief  in  this 
was  demanded  as  pre-requisite  to  intelligent  investigation  of  Christian 
truth. 

It  is  evident  that  these  special  applications  and  peculiar  meanings 
of  the  maxim  are  entirely  irrelevant  to  questions  concerning  the  rela- 
tion of  reflective  knowledge  to  primitive,  the  true  conception  and 
proper  designation  of  primitive  knowledge,  and  the  reality  of  religious 
knowledge  and  its  legitimate  place  in  the  circle  of  human  intelligence. 

4.  Knowledge  through  the  belief  of  testimony  is  reflective  know- 
ledge because  it  is  attained  by  the  interpretation  of  symbols.  It  can 
never  be  intuitive  or  primitive  knowledge.  It  may  be  said,  however, 
that  man  is  constituted  susceptible  of  receiving  knowledge  by  testi- 
mony. A  man  cannot  be  defined  from  his  individual  personality 
alone.  He  is  a  member  of  a  race  which  is  constantly  in  contact  with 
him  and  acting  on  him  at  many  points ;  and  he  is  constituted  suscep- 
tible of  receiving  these  influences.  Only  as  this  fact,  complemental  to 
his  personality,  is  recognized  can  man  be  understood.  His  suscepti- 
bility of  receiving  knowledge  through  testimony  is  one  of  these  points 
of  contact  with  the  race.  The  child  believes  everything.  We  do  not 

*  Reid's  Works:  Hamilton's  Ed.    Note  A,  page  760. 


THE  ACTS  AND  PROCESSES   OF  KNOWING.  81 

learn  to  believe  but  to  disbelieve.  The  consciousness  of  the  race  always 
in  contact  \vith  the  individual  seems  to  infuse  itself  into  his  indi- 
vidual consciousness  and  enlarge  it  to  a  world-wide  knowledge.  In 
this  way  the  knowledge  of  past  generations  is  communicated  to  the 
living  and  knowledge  is  continually  enlarged.  Principles  and  laws 
and  science  get  incorporated  into  customs,  institutions  and  civilizations 
and  are  thus  perpetuated.  Were  it  not  for  this  power  of  participating 
in  the  consciousness  of  the  race,  men  would  remain  through  all  time 
at  the  lowest  grade  of  savagery ;  or  rather  man  could  not  have  con- 
tinued to  exist  on  the  earth.  Testimony,  in  its  broadest  sense  as 
denoting  all  communication  of  knowledge  from  man  to  man,  is  an 
important  medium  through  which  knowledge  already  elaborated  by 
others  is  communicated  to  us  and  received  in  its  elaborated  form. 

V.  Reflection  and  experience  become  a  sort  of  spontaneous  knowledge 
in  common  sense.  The  Philosophy  of  Reid  is  called  the  philosophy  of 
common  sense.  The  phrase  here  means  the  sensus  communis  of  man- 
kind, and  refers  to  the  principles  believed  or  at  least  acted  on  by  all 
mankind.  Thus  used  "  common  sense  "  is  essentially  the  same  with  in- 
tuition. There  is  also  a  popular  and  homely  use  of  the  word  in  which 
it  has  a  different  meaning.  This  Locke  speaks  of  as  "  large  roundabout 
common  sense."  This  is  continually  appealed  to  as  a  source  of  know- 
ledge, especially  in  the  practical  direction  of  conduct.  It  is  a  knowr- 
ledge  by  which  a  man  judges  what  action  is  wise,  while  unable  to  tell 
why  he  believes  it  to  be  so.  I  suppose  it  to  be  the  result  of  the  experi- 
ence and  reflection  of  life,  which  has  inwoven  itself  into  the  texture  of 
knowledge  and  acts  with  the  quickness  and  insight  of  an  intuition  and 
with  the  unconsciousness  of  an  instinct.  Customary  action  tends  to  be- 
come automatic.  What  was  learned  with  painstaking,  as  speaking  a 
language,  tends  to  become  spontaneous.  What  was  once  the  slow  result 
of  thought,  may  come,  by  long  experience  and  hereditary  transmission, 
to  act  with  unerring  unconsciousness  as  an  instinct.  So  common  sense 
may  be  the  past  experience  half  sunk  already  into  an  instinct  and  spon- 
taneously indicating  what  it  has  always  found  to  be  wise.  It  is  not  an 
intuition,  since  it  is  always  possible  even  at  the  moment  to  think  that 
the  contrary  may  be  true.  It  is  not  unerring.  But  the  continual  ap- 
peal to  it  is  not  unphilosophical ;  and  it  should  be  noted  as  a  source  of 
knowledge,  which  can  only  remotely  be  resolved  into  intuition,  memory 
and  thought. 

\  16.   Relation   of    Reflective   Thought    to    the    Universal 

Reason. 

The  processes  of  reflective  thought  essentially  imply  that  the  universe 
is  grounded  in  and  is  the  manifestation  of  Reason.     They  thus  rest  on 
the  assumption  that  a  personal  God  exists. 
6 


82  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

I.  This  assumption  is  the  ultimate  ground  of  the  possibility  of  know- 
ledge by  inference.  If  the  mathematics  by  which  astronomers  make 
their  calculations  are  not  the  mathematics  of  all  space  and  time,  all  our 
astronomy  is  worthless.  If  the  law  of  causation,  and  the  principle  of 
the  uniformity  of  nature  that  the  same  complex  of  causes  always  pro- 
duces the  same  effect,  are  not  true  of  the  whole  universe,  all  our  science 
is  invalidated.  If  the  law  of  love  is  not  the  law  of  all  rational  beings 
all  ethical  knowledge  is  annihilated.  That  the  principles  of  reason  are 
everywhere  and  always  the  same  is  the  basis  of  the  possibility  of  rational 
knowledge.  But  this  is  only  saying  that  Keason  supreme  and  universal, 
everywhere  and  always  one  and  the  same,  is  energizing  in  the  universe 
and  is  the  ultimate  ground  of  its  existence,  constitution  and  develop- 
ment. And  this  Energizing  Reason  is  God.  Science  assumes  that  the 
universe  is  a  system  or  cosmos  concatenated  and  ordered  under  princi- 
ples and  laws  everywhere  and  always  the  same,  and  that  by  these  it  can 
determine  what  the  ongoing  of  the  universe  is  in  its  farthest  extent  in 
space  and  what  it  has  been  and  will  be  in  the  remotest  past  and  future. 
This  is  possible  only  because  these  truths  and  laws  are  eternal  in  the 
one  absolute  Reason  who  expresses  them  by  his  energizing  in  the  con- 
stitution and  evolution  of  the  universe.  And  the  theist  adds  that  the 
evolution  of  the  universe  is  the  forever  progressive  expression  and  real- 
ization, not  only  of  truths  and  laws,  but  also  of  rational  ideals  and  ends ; 
ideals  and  ends  of  wisdom  and  love,  which  are  eternal  and  archetypal 
in  the  Absolute  Reason,  God. 

Like  this  was  the  position  of  Descartes.  He  recognizes,  at  the  basis 
of  all  reflective  intelligence,  primitive  beliefs  on  which  the  force  of  all 
proofs  depends  and  without  which  man  is  condemned  to  irremediable 
doubt ;  he  sees  that  these  fundamental  principles  thus  necessarily  be- 
lieved must  have  their  reality  in  God,  and  that  if  God  does  not  exist, 
our  reason  has  no  guaranty ;  and  he  proclaims  God,  as  the  first  and  the 
most  certain  of  all  truths.  Thus  the  existence  of  God,  the  absolute 
Reason,  is  the  ultimate  ground  of  the  possibility  of  scientific  knowledge. 
This  rests  on  the  truth  that  the  universe  is  ultimately  grounded  in 
Reason,  that  it  is  constituted  and  goes  on  in  accordance  with  rational 
truths  and  laws,  and  for  the  realization  of  rational  ideals  and  ends.  It 
implies  also  that  we  have  knoAvledge  of  reason  and  of  its  truths,  laws, 
ideals  and  ends ;  that  the  primitive  intuitions  of  human  reason  are  true ; 
that  the  necessary  and  universal  principles  constituent  of  human  ration- 
ality are  constituent  principles  of  rationality  which  is  universal  and 
supreme.  Without  this  neither  induction  nor  the  Newtonian  method 
can  conclude  in  real  knowledge.  "  This  includes  the  assumption  with- 
out which  the  principles,  maxims  and  methods  of  the  inductive  philoso- 
phy have  no  meaning  and  no  foundation,  viz.  that  the  universe  of  mat- 


THE   ACTS  AND  PROCESSES  OF  KNOWING.  83 

ter  and  mind  has  its  ground  and  explanation  in  an  intelligent  creator. 
In  other  words,  Induction  rests  on  the  assumption,  as  it  demands  for  its 
ground,  that  a  personal  Deity  exists."  * 

II.  It  is  only  on  this  assumption  that  thought  can  complete  its  neces- 
sary processes  and  solve  its  ultimate  problem. 

1.  The  necessary  process  of  thought  culminates  in  comprehending 
the  manifold  in  unity ;  its  ultimate  problem  is  to  comprehend  all  par- 
ticular realities  in  unity ;  that  is,  to  comprehend  the  all  in  one.     In  its 
necessary  processes  of  apprehending,  differentiating  and  comprehending, 
it  continually  finds  larger  and  larger  unities,  till  it  comes  to  its  ulti- 
mate problem  to  comprehend  all  the  manifold  in  a  unity  of  thought. 

2.  It  cannot  comprehend  the  all  in  a  merely  numerical  unity,  but 
only  in  the  unity  of  a  rational  system.     A  numerical  unity  would  be 
only  a  multitude  of  disintegrated   individuals,  excluding  their  real 
relations,  their  causes,  interaction  and  laws ;  and  so  would  not  be  the 
unity  of  the  All. 

The  objects  of  thought  are  the  actual  beings  and  realities  of 'the 
universe  in  their  actual  relations.  They  cannot  be  comprehended  in 
unity  till  we  know  their  cause  or  ground,  and  their  sufficient  reason. 
The  mind  must  know  the  absolute  ground  of  all  that  is  and  the  ac- 
cordance of  all  things  with  the  truth,  laws,  ideals  and  ends  of  reason. 
The  ultimate  problem  of  thought  is  to  find  the  unity  of  the  all  in  a 
rational  system. 

3.  This  unity   is   possible  only  in   the  recognition  of  a  personal 
God.     The  mind  cannot  find  the  ground  or  cause  of  all^that  begins 
and  changes  in  that  which  itself  begins  and  changes,  but  only  beyond  in 
the  Absolute  Being  who  never  begins  but  is  eternally  the  same.     It 
cannot  find  the  sufficient  reason  or  rationale  of  things  in  the  facts  of 
experience  but  only  in  their  accordance  with  principles,  laws,  ideals 
and  ends  which  are  eternal  in  Reason  absolute,  perfect  and  supreme. 
For  if  these  are  not  eternal  in  the  absolute  ground  of  the  universe 
they  are  not  in  the  universe  at  all,  and  the  scientific  and  philosophical 
knowledge  of  the  universe  as  a  rational  system  is  forever  impossible. 
This  absolute  Reason  which  is  the  ground  or  cause  of  the  universe  is 
what  theism  calls  God.     Theism,  therefore,  is  the  only  possible  solution 
of  the  ultimate  and  ever-urgent  problem  of  human  intelligence.    Theism 
is  not  a  creation  of  feeling  and  fancy  excluded  from  the  realm  of 
knowledge.     If  recognized  as  knowledge  it  is  not  a  mere  appendix  to 
completed  science,  which  those  may  study  who  wish,  while  those  who 
do  not  concern  themselves  with  it  suffer  no  intellectual  loss.     On  the 
contrary  it  lies  at  the  foundation  of  all  science  and  philosophy,  and 

*  The  Human  Intellect ;  by  President  Porter,  §  497. 


84  THE  PHILOSOPHIC AJ,  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

without  it  thought  cannot  complete  itself  as  knowledge  nor  solve  its 
own  necessary  problems  on  any  subject  whatever.  Theology  is  not 
occupied  with  abstractions,  but  with  the  deepest  realities  both  of  nature 
and  of  man. 

Skeptics  continually  miss  the  theistic  conception  that  the  universe  is 
grounded  in  absolute  Reason,  and  charge  on  theism  the  conception 
that  the  universe  is  grounded  in  caprice,  that  is,  in  will  unregulated 
by  reason.  Even  Prof.  Jevons,  from  whom  a  more  correct  idea  of 
theism  might  be  expected,  in  a  passage  already  quoted,  twice  uses  the 
phrase  "  arbitrary  change  "  as  describing  the  action  of  God. 

Krug  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  relation  of  reason  and  con- 
sequent is  different  from  that  of  cause  and  effect.*  Hamilton  criticises 
Leibnitz's  "  sufficient  reason  "  because  it  includes  both  the  reason  why 
things  exist,  and  the  reason  why  we  think  them  to  exist.  But  if 
reason  is  the  organ  of  principles  or  truths  and  not  merely  an  organ 
of  contradictions  revealing  only  its  own  impotence,  then  the  law  of 
causality  is  at  once  a  law  of  thought  and  a  law  of  things ;  and  the 
same  is  true  of  all  the  necessary  principles  of  reason ;  then  in  concrete 
or  realistic  thought  a  logic  of  reason  must  be  recognized  as  underlying 
the  formal  logic ;  then  the  fundamental  basis  alike  of  all  being  and  of 
all  thought  is  absolute  reason  energizing  with  almighty  power  in 
accordance  with  its  own  eternal  laws,  expressing  its  own  eternal 
truths,  and  realizing  its  own  ideals  and  ends.  And  this  is  the  theistic 
conception  of  the  universe.  The  study  of  the  universe  gives  us  science 
because  its*  beginning  and  its  ongoing  express  perfect  and  eternal 
reason. 

III.  The  primary  motive  of  scientific  investigation  is  in  the  consti- 
tution of  man  as  rational,  impelling  him  to  seek  the  knowledge  of  all 
things  in  their  reality,  difference  and  relations,  and  to  comprehend 
them  in  the  unity  of  a  rational  system.  He  is  impelled  by  his  consti- 
tution as  rational  to  seek  the  unity  of  all  things  in  their  cause  or 
ground  and  their  rational  principles,  laws  and  ends.  The  three 
questions  of  philosophy,  according  to  Kant,  are  these :  "  What  can 
we  know  ?  What  shall  we  do  ?  What  may  we  hope  ?"  The  second 
and  third  of  these  questions  of  course  present  motives  to  seek  the 
answer  to  the  first.  We  seek  knowledge  to  guide  us  in  our  action 
and  to  disclose  the  ends  that  are  worthy  of  our  pursuit.  In  fact  a 
merely  speculative  interest  in  knowing  is  morbid  and  misleading. 
The  pursuit  of  knowledge  is  safest  from  error  and  most  fruitful  in 
attaining  truth  when  it  is  sought  for  its  practical  use  in  the  right 
conduct  of  human  life  and  for  the  attainment  of  worthy  ends.  Never- 

*  Encyklopadisch-philosophischea  Lexicon,  article  Ursache. 


THE  ACTS  AND  PROCESSES  OF  KNOWING.  85 

theless  there  is  in  the  human  constitution  a  persistent  impulse  to  seek 
to  know  the  realities  within  us  and  without,  to  account  for  them  by 
finding  their  causes,  to  interpret  and  vindicate  them  to  the  reason  by 
finding  their  accord  with  rational  principles,  laws  and  ends,  and  thus 
to  bring  them  into  the  unity  of  a  rational  system. 

§  17.    Probability. 

In  completing  our  survey  of  the  acts  and  processes  of  knowing,  we 
find  that  reasoning  is  not  always  demonstrative;  that  after  man's 
utmost  investigations  in  the  legitimate  use  of  his  intellectual  powers 
a  large  part  of  his  conclusions  fall  short  of  certainty.  What  must  be 
done  with  the  mass  of  probability  ? 

I.  In  cases  of  evidence  insufficient  to  give  certainty  it  is  natural  and 
legitimate  to  give  assent  to  the  conclusion  as  probable  in  degree  pro- 
portioned to  the  evidence.     This  is  only  saying  that  we  assent  so  far  as 
we  know.     So  far  as  there  is  evidence  we  know ;  at  the  same  time  we 
are  conscious  of  a  residuum  of  reality  in  the  object  of  thought  which 
we  do  not  know.     Such  assent  is  legitimate  and  necessary  according  to 
the  constitution  of  the  mind ;  it  is  as  legitimate  as  the  assent  with 
irresistible  certainty  to  a  mathematical  demonstration  or  an  immediate 
act  of  consciousness. 

II.  When  the  improbability  is  very  slight  the  mind  disregards  it 
and  the  assent  is  not  practically  different  from  knowledge.     "  Several 
philosophers  have  attempted  to  assign  the  limit  of  probabilities  which 
we  regard  as  zero.     Buffon  named  one  in  ten  thousand,  because  it  is 
the  probability,  practically  disregarded,  that  a  man  of  fifty-six  years  of 
age  will  die  the  next  day."     It  is  impracticable  to   delay  on  so  slight 
an  improbability.     If  every  slightest  possibility  of  the  contrary  must 
be  removed  before  acting,  all  achievement  would  cease  and  the  entire 
action  of  life  would  resolve  itself  into  doubting  and  asking  questions. 

III.  Assent  on  probable  evidence  is  reasonably  and  legitimately  a 
guide   of  conduct.     We   learn   from   Pascal*    that    certain    Roman 
Catholic  writers  taught  that  it  is  permitted  to  follow  the  less  probable 
of  two  opinions,  although  conscious  of  being  less  sure  of  it.     Mr.  Glad- 
stone quotes  a  "  Manuel  des  confesseurs  "  published  for  the  use  of  the 
French  clergy  of  the  present  day,  which  teaches  essentially  the  same 
doctrine.f     This  doctrine  is  contrary  to  good  morals,  since  within  the 
whole  wide  range  of  probability  it  allows  a  man  arbitrarily  to  choose 
the  opinions  by  which  he  will  regulate  his  own  conduct  and  which  he 
will  inculcate  for  the  regulation  of  the  conduct  of  others.     It  is  con- 
trary also   to   common   sense  and  the   natural    action   of  the   mind. 

*  Les  Provinciales ;   Lettre  V. 

|  Gleanings  of  past  years ;  Miscellaneous ;  pr  196. 


86  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

When  conflicting  opinions  do  not  require  immediate  action  it  is 
possible  and  wise  to  suspend  judgment.  But  when  immediate  action 
according  to  the  one  or  the  other  is  necessary,  every  one  will  act 
according  to  the  opinion  that  seems  the  more  probable,  unless  he  is 
deficient  in  understanding,  or  is  biased  by  some  conflicting  personal 
interest  or  desire  which  might  equally  lead  him  to  act  in  disregard  of 
what  he  knows  is  true. 

Bishop  Butler,  in  the  Introduction  to  the  Analogy,  says,  "  Proba- 
bility is  the  very  guide  of -life.  .  .  .  A  greater  presumption  on  one 
side,  though  in  the  lowest  degree  greater,  determines  the  question, 
even  in  matters  of  speculation ;  and,  in  matters  of  practice,  will  lay  us 
under  an  absolute  and  formal  obligation  to  act  on  that  presumption  or 
low  probability,  though  it  be  so  low  as  to  leave  the  mind  in  very  great 
doubt  which  is  the  truth."  The  same  thought  is  expressed  by  Vol- 
taire :  "  Almost  the  whole  of  human  life  revolves  on  probabilities.  .  .  . 
Uncertainty  being  almost  always  the  lot  of  man,  we  should  rarely 
come  to  any  determination  if  we  waited  for  demonstration.  Yet  it  is 
necessary  to  take  a  course  of  action  and  we  must  not  take  it  at  hap- 
hazard. It  is  therefore  necessary  for  our  nature  weak,  blind  and 
always  liable  to  error,  to  study  probabilities  with  as  much  care  as  we 
learn  arithmetic  and  geometry."  * 

IV.  These  principles  are  applicable  to  religious  belief,  but  with  no 
peculiar  significance ;  assent  and  action  are  regulated  by  probability 
here  precisely  as  in  reference  to  other  subjects.  The  law  of  assent  to 
probability  has  not  been  invented  in  the  interest  of  religion,  as  many 
seem  to  imagine ;  it  is  simply  a  law  common  to  every  sphere  of  belief 
and  action.  It  is  a  common  fallacy  to  demand  an  infallible  certainty 
in  religion  never  required  elsewhere;  and  to  urge  as  valid  against 
religious  belief  objections,  founded  on  some  transcendental  theory  of 
the  necessity  of  a  certainty  outreaching  all  finite  intelligence,  which 
are  instantly  rejected  as  unworthy  of  notice  both  in  physical  science 
and  practical  life.  Yet  they  are  as  forcible  against  assent  and  action 
in  both  of  those  spheres  of  thought  as  in  religion.  Hence  devout  and 
earnest  inquirers  are  entangled  in  needless  and  distressing  perplexity ; 
worldly  men,  who  every  day  prosecute  enterprises  and  venture  fortune 
and  life  on  probabilities,  excuse  themselves  from  religious  action 
because  some  questions  remain  unanswered  and  some  doubts  unre- 
moved ;  and  skeptics,  who  in  their-  own  life-time  have  held  as  science 
successive  and  incompatible  theories  of  geology,  or  light,  or  other 
scientific  matter,  are  loud  in  objecting  against  religious  belief  because 
it  does  not  give  absolute  certainty  on  all  points. 

*Essai  sur  les  probabilites  en  fait  de  justice.    Oeuvres;  vol.  30,  p.  419. 


THE  ACTS  AND  PROCESSES  OF  KNOWING.  37 

In  a  former  chapter  it  was  shown  that,  although  the  mind  is  fallible, 
it  is  capable  of  knowledge,  and  that  the  larger  part  of  our  beliefs  are 
confirmed  by  the  continuous  experience  of  life.  It  often  happens  that 
what  at  first  was  rejected  as  improbable,  comes  by  experience  to  be 
known  as  sustained  by  convincing  evidence ;  that  an  opinion,  acted  on 
at  first  with  hesitation,  by  its  sufficiency  as  a  guide  to  action  vindicates 
itself  as  truth  and  clarifies  itself  into  knowledge.  The  same  is  true  of 
religious  belief  and  of  action  upon  it.  Venturing  on  it  at  first  with 
hesitation,  it  proves  itself  sufficient  for  the  intellect,  the  heart  and  the 
conduct,  it  becomes  interwoven  with  all  the  threads  of  life  and  into  the 
texture  of  the  character,  and  thus  comes  to  be  believed  with  the 
highest  certainty  and  rested  on  with  the  most  serene  confidence. 
"  Then  shaD.  we  know  if  we  follow  on  to  know  the  Lord."  What  the 
Scripture  here  affirms  as  true  of  religious  knowledge  is  an  example  of 
what  is  true  of  all  knowledge.  In  the  experience  of  life  man  advances 
from  the  doubtful  to  the  certain,  from  the  obscure  to  the  clear,  from 
the  known  to  the  knowledge  of  what  had  been  unknown ;  and  though 
his  mind  is  limited  and  fallible  and  though  he  cannot  by  any  intellec- 
tual gymnastics  leap  out  of  the  limitations  of  his  powers,  yet  by  the 
legitimate  use  of  his  powers  he  is  capable  of  knowledge  and  of  its 
indefinite  enlargement.  But  he  must  trustfully  use  his  powers  on 
their  legitimate  objects:  and  trustfully  act  on  the  results,  whether 
probability  or  certainty.  For  if  he  spend  his  strength  in  trying  to 
unravel  the  limitations  of  his  being,  he  will  be  entangled  like  a  fly 
in  a  spider's  web  and  be  thenceforth  capable  of  no  action  but  an 
impotent  buzzing  of  distress. 


CHAPTER  IV. 


WHAT  IS  KNOWN  THROUGH  PRESENT ATIVE  OR  PERCEPTIVE 

INTUITION. 


$18.    What  is  Known  through  Sense-Perception. 

IN  sense-perception  man  has  knowledge  of  the  external  world.  He 
has  immediate  perception  of  his  own  body  and  of  bodies  immediately 
affecting  him  through  the  senses. 

I  assume  this  on  the  principles  of  Natural  Realism.  It  is  unneces- 
sary to  enter  into  any  vindication  of  the  reality  of  this  knowledge 
against  phenomenalists  and  idealists.  Comte  attempted  to  rest  phy- 
sical science  on  phenomenalism.  But  the  students  of  physical  science 
have  generally  abandoned  his  complete  positivism  and  emphasize  the 
reality  and  certainty  of  our  knowledge  of  the  objects  of  sense.  They 
affirm  the  knowledge  of  bodies  composed  of  infrangible  atoms,  and  of 
force  with  its  conservation,  correlation  and  transformations. 

It  is  unnecessary,  also,  because  Hume  demonstrated  that  every  theory 
of  phenomenalism  or  subjective  idealism  involves  the  denial  of  all 
knowledge.  It  is  idle  to  reopen  a  question  then  decisively  settled,  or 
to  plunge  again  into  the  discussion  of  insoluble  puzzles  which  were 
then  remanded  to  the  sphere  of  that  transcendent  skepticism  which  de- 
nies all  knowledge  because  a  man  cannot  take  himself  up  in  his  own 
hands  and  examine  himself,  as  he  would  an  insect  under  a  microscope. 

So  Mr.  Mulford  puts  it :  "  Man  by  the  senses  has  a  direct  perception 
of  the  physical  world  and  it  is  a  waste  of  thought  to  carry  the  subject 
through  metaphysical  speculation.  But  this  does  not  demonstrate  the 
certainty  of  the  physical  world  to  one  who  denies  it.  .  .  .  .  There 
is  no  demonstration  of  the  being  of  the  physical  world."  *  Our  know- 
ledge of  it  is  not  by  reasoning  or  any  reflective  thought,  but  is  by 
intuition.  So  Lord  Bacon  affirms  that  sense  gives  us  knowledge  of 
"  natural  matters,"  "  unless  a  man  please  to  go  mad."  f 

Sense-perception,  however,  does  not  decide  between  speculative  theo- 
ries of  the  constitution  of  matter.  These  are  irrelevant  to  the  question. 
If  matter  consists  of  Boscovich's  points  of  force,  or  of  Dr.  Hickock's 
pencils  of  force  in  equilibrium,  if  it  is  a  form  of  will-force,  or  a  manifes- 

*  Republic  of  God,  p.  96.    Note. 

f  Distributio  operis,  prefixed  to  Novum  Organum. 

88 


PRESEXTATIVE  OK  PERCEPTIVE  INTUITION.  89 

tation  of  thought,  all  its  properties  and  powers  and  its  objective  reality 
remain  unchanged. 

It  must  be  added  that  in  sense-perception  there  is  always  a  rational  in- 
tuition, implicit  or  explicit  hi  the  consciousness.  In  sensation  I  become 
aware  of  the  action  within  my  consciousness  of  a  power  not  my  own. 
At  the  same  time  I  know  hi  the  light  of  reason  that  this  power  not  my 
own  must  be  exerted  by  some  other  being ;  for  it  is  a  rational  intuition 
that  every  change  must  have  a  cause.  Man  cannot  divest  himself  of  his 
reason  in  any  act.  Natural  Realists  recognize  an  implicit  judgment  in 
every  perception ;  it  is  sometimes  called  a  psychological,  as  distinguished 
from  a  logical  judgment.  What  is  really  present  is  the  implicit,  rational 
intuition  that  the  power  exerted  is  the  power  of  some  being.  In  per- 
ception, so  far  as  the  intellectual  act  is  the  knowledge  of  a  particular 
power  present  and  acting  here  and  now,  we  call  it  presentative  or  per- 
ceptive intuition ;  so  far  as  it  is  the  knowledge  of  a  universal  principle 
of  reason  applicable  in  the  particular  case,  it  is  rational  intuition. 

But  the  fact  that  a  rational  intuition  is  present  in  perception  does  not 
invalidate  the  knowledge.  Rational  intuition  gives  knowledge  as  really 
as  perceptive.  And  the  mind  is  not  divided ;  the  act  is  one  act  hi 
which  the  mind,  constituted  both  perceptive  and  rational,  knows  by  in- 
tuition at  once  perceptive  and  rational.  So  far  from  invalidating  the 
knowledge,  the  union  of  the  two  is  essential  to  it.  Rational  intuition 
without  the  perceptive  intuition  of  an  object  is  empty  of  content ;  per- 
ceptive intuition,  without  rational  intuition  of  the  form  hi  which  reason 
sees  it,  is  unintelligent  and  falls  short  of  knowledge.* 

As  to  the  general  objection  that  knowledge  must  be  wholly  subjective 
and  therefore  not  real  knowledge,  because  a  factor  is  contributed  by  the 
intellect,  it  is  sufficient  to  reply  as  follows.  If  external  reality  and  a 
man  to  know  it  exist,  the  knowledge  is  impossible  except  as  the  man 
and  the  reality  about  him  act  and  react  on  each  other.  In  human 
knowledge  the  outward  reality  acts  on  man  through  the  senses  and  man 
reacts  in  sense-perception.  In  voluntary  exertion  the  man  acts  on  the 
outward  reality  and  it  reacts  on  him.  In  both  ways  he  knows  its  ex- 
istence. The  objection  implies  that  it  is  essential  to  the  knowledge  of 
outward  reality  that  no  such  action  and  reaction  take  place.  It  implies 
that  the  mind  must  have  knowledge  of  an  object  without  coming  into 
any  relation  or  connection  with  it,  without  acting  or  reacting  on  it.  It 
requires  that  there  must  be  knowledge  without  knowing. 

It  is  also  objected  that  because  knowledge  is  an  intellectual  act  it  can 
have  no  resemblance  to  the  outward  object,  and  that  therefore  we  can 
have  no  knowledge  of  the  outward  object,  but  only  of  subjective  im- 

*  "  Begriffe  ohne  Anschauungen  sind  leer ;  Anschauungen  ohne  Begriflfe  sind  blind." 
Kant. 


90  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL   BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

pressions.  This  objection  implies  that  knowledge  in  order  to  be  real 
must  be  like  the  outward  object ;  that  in  perceiving  a  tree  there  must 
be  some  image,  imprint  or  effigy  of  the  tree  in  the  mind.  This  notion 
may  have  arisen  from  the  analogy  of  outwrard  objects  impressing  the 
sensorium,  and  especially  of  light  entering  the  eye.  But  an  image,  or 
imprint,  or  effigy  of  a  tree  cannot  enter  the  mind  any  more  than  the 
tree  itself  can.  Nor  can  knowledge,  which  is  an  intellectual  act,  be  an 
image  or  imprint  of  a  tree.  The  objection  is  just  as  valid  against  the 
knowledge  of  impressions  and  phenomena  as  against  the  knowledge  of 
the  tree  itself.  When  an  object  is  present  to  the  senses  it  awakens  sen- 
sation in  a  way  wholly  mysterious  to  us ;  the  mind  reacts  on  the  object 
in  perceptive  and  rational  intuition  and  knows  it.  The  object  per- 
ceived does  not  imprint  an  image;  it  occasions  an  action  of  intellect 
knowing  the  object.  The  perception  has  no  resemblance  to  the  object, 
but  is  its  intellectual  equivalent ;  is  the  conscious  reacting  of  the  mind 
on  the  object  and  knowing  it.  The  sensation  itself  is  the  response  in 
the  feelings  to  the  presence  of  the  object.  All  objections  of  this  kind 
rest  on  the  absurdity  that  knowledge  of  outward  objects  is  possible  only 
if  it  cease  to  be  knowledge  and  become  identical  with  insensate  bodies ; 
that  knowledge  is  possible  only  if  divested  of  that  which  is  its  essence 
as  knowledge;  that  knowledge  is  impossible  if  there  is  a  mind  that 
knows. 

As  to  the  mystery  how  material  things  can  be  apprehended  by  the 
mind  in  an  intellectual  equivalent,  we  may  say  at  least  that  the  Uni- 
verse is  itself  the  expression  of  thought  and  therefore  can  be  translated 
back  into  thought.  In  the  Absolute  Reason  the  archetypal  forms  of  all 
that  is  in  the  universe  are  eternal.  In  the  finite  Reason  there  must  be, 
if  not  the  archetypal  forms  of  things,  at  least  the  capacity  of  construct- 
ing the  intellectual  equivalents  of  those  forms  which  constitute  real 
knowledge  of  them.  In  the  absolute  Reason  the  principles  and  laws 
regulative  of  all  rational  thought  and  action  are  eternal ;  these  are  the 
constitution  of  the  universe,  eternal  in  the  absolute  Reason.  In  the 
finite  Reason  there  must  be  at  least  the  capacity  of  knowing  these  con- 
stitutive principles  and  laws,  as  occasion  for  their  application  arises  in 
experience  in  the  continual  action  and  reaction  of  the  finite  Reason  and 
the  universe.  The  universe  in  its  deepest  significance  and  reality  is  the 
expression  of  the  archetypal  thoughts  of  the  Absolute  Reason.  In  the 
finite  reason  there  must  be  at  least  the  power  to  translate  it  back  into 
the  thought  which  it  expresses,  to  grasp  its  reality  and  significance  in 
intellectual  equivalents  in  which  and  in  which  alone  its  true  reality  and 
significance  are  known.  That  which  is  in  its  origin  and  essence  the  ex- 
pression of  thought  can  be  apprehended  in  thought.  We  may  reason- 
ably suppose  that  if  the  universe  were  not  originally  the  expression  of 


PEESEXTATIVE  OR  PERCEPTIVE  INTUITION.  91 

thought,  science  and  all  other  apprehension  of  it  in  thought  would  be 
impossible.  The  universe  and  the  things  in  it  would  have  no  intellectual 
equivalents. 

\  19.    What  is  Known  through  Self-Consciousness. 

Self-consciousness  is  the  knowledge  which  the  mind  has  of  itself  in 
its  own  operations. 

I.  The  object  known,  the  subject  knowing  and  the  knowledge  are 
known  simultaneously  in  one  and  the  same  act.  In  every  act  of  knowing 
the  knowledge  of  self  as  knowing  is  an  essential  element.  This  accords 
with  the  first  law  of  thought,  that  knowledge  implies  a  subject  know- 
ing, an  object  known  and  the  knowledge.  In  thought  the  knowledge 
of  the  object  is  distinguishable  from  my  knowledge  of  myself  as  know- 
ing; but  they  are  inseparable  in  fact.  I  perceive  a  stone.  If  iny 
knowledge  of  myself  perceiving  is  annulled  the  entire  perception  is 
annulled.  But  my  knowledge  of  myself  is  not  given  in  a  separate  act. 
All  knowledge  is  a  knowledge  of  two  realities,  the  object  known  and 
the  subject  knowing,  in  one  indivisible  intellectual  act.  The  knowledge 
of  the  object  may  be  called  direct  intelligence,  the  knowledge  of  the 
subject,  inverse.  The  mind  is  like  the  sun,  which  in  revealing  external 
objects  necessarily  reveals  itself. 

Sense-perception  and  self-consciousness  are  simultaneous  in  one  act. 
It  is  like  the  hand  which  can  grasp  objects  only  as  it  retains  its  vital 
connection  with  the  organism ;  like  the  electro-magnetic  circuit,  one 
force  acting  at  two  opposite  poles ;  or  like  the  interaction  between  the 
nervous  centers  and  the  outward  object  by  the  afferent  and  efferent 
nerves. 

The  same  two  in  one  is  noticeable  when  the  object  of  thought  is 
itself  mental.  AVhen  a  mental  state  is  continuous,  as  a  sorrow,  a  pre- 
ference or  purpose,  a  belief  or  a  doubt,  the  mind  can  observe  it  while 
present,  as  it  would  observe  a  zoological  specimen  continuously  present 
before  the  senses ;  the  mind  can  also  attend  to  its  representations  of 
former  mental  states.  In  these  cases  also  the  knowledge  is  direct  of 
the  object  and  inverse  of  the  subject ;  and  the  latter  is  essential  to  the 
knowledge  as  really  as  in  sense-perception. 

This  knowledge  which  we  have  of  ourselves  in  every  act  of  knowing 
is  sometimes  called  implicit  or  virtual  consciousness.  It  is  the  intuitive 
unreflective  consciousness  in  which  the  mind  knows  all  the  elemental 
material  of  thought  respecting  itself  in  its  own  operations.  It  is  the 
mind's  primitive  knowledge  of  itself  not  yet  apprehended,  discrimi- 
nated and  integrated  in  thought.  It  is  present  in  all  feeling  and  all 
voluntary  action  as  well  as  in  all  knowing  and  thinking. 

The  direct  intelligence  or  knowledge  of  the  object  is  expressed  in  the 


92  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

formula,  "This  is."  The  inverse  intelligence  or  knowledge  of  the 
subject  is  expressed  in  the  formula,  "  I  know  that  this  is."  The  former 
is  the  affirmation  when  the  mind,  intent  on  the  object  known,  gives  no 
attention  to  itself  as  knowing,  as  one  breathes  the  air  without  noticing 
it.  The  latter  is  the  affirmation  when  the  mind  takes  notice  of  its 
own  knowledge  and  affirms  it.  It  affirms  both  the  subject  knowing 
and  the  knowledge ;  both,  "  It  is  I  who  know,"  and  "  I  know  that 
I  know." 

II.  By  self-consciousness  we  have  knowledge  of  our  own  mental 
actions  and  states.  We  thus  know  what  thought  and  knowledge, 
doubt,  probability  and  certainty  are ;  what  argument,  inference,  gen- 
eralization and  other  intellectual  processes  are;  what  joy  and  sorrow, 
hope  and  fear,  desire  and  aversion,  volition  and  choice  are. 

Comte  objects  that  psychological  knowledge  founded  on  conscious- 
ness is  impossible ;  because  the  mind  in  perception  or  thought  is  occu- 
pied with  the  object  and  cannot  at  the  same  time  attend  to  its  own 
action ;  and  consequently  the  mental  operations  can  be  examined  only 
as  represented  in  memory.  He  says :  "  Nothing  can  be  more  absurd 
than  the  supposition  of  a  man  seeing  himself  think."  Similar  views 
are  avowed  by  De  Morgan,  Dr.  Maudsley  and  F.  A.  Lange.  *  Lange 
says :  "  We  have  already  seen  that  Materialism  is  prepared,  in  a  way 
forbidden  to  all  other  systems,  to  bring  order  and  unity  into  the 
sensible  world  and  is  justified  in  treating  man  and  all  his  affairs  as  a 
special  case  of  the  universal  law  of  nature.  But  between  man  as  object 
of  empirical  investigation  and  man  as  the  subject  having  immediate 
knowledge  of  himself,  an  eternal  gulf  remains  fixed.  Hence  the  ex- 
periment forever  returns  whether  the  view  of  the  universe  derived 
from  self-consciousness  will  not  be  more  satisfactory ;  and  so  strong  is 
the  common  attraction  of  man  to  this  side  that  this  experiment  is  a 
hundred  times  regarded  as  successful,  though  all  preceding  experiments 
of  the  kind  are  known  to  have  failed.  It  will  be  one  of  the  most 
essential  steps  in  the  progress  of  philosophy  when  this  experiment  is 
finally  abandoned.  But  it  never  will  be  unless  this  impulse  to  find  the 
unity  of  things  is  satisfied  in  some  other  way."  He  proceeds  to  say 
that  a  unity  of  the  life  and  of  the  spirit  may  be  created  for  the  uni- 
verse by  poetry  and  imagination,  though  it  must  be  excluded  from  the 
sphere  of  knowledge. 

Few  now  affirm,  as  explicitly  as  Comte,  the  impossibility  of  psycho- 
logical knowledge  derived  from  self-consciousness.  But  it  underlies  the 
prevalent  tendency  to  exclude  from  science  all  knowledge  not  derived 

*  Comte,  Positive  Philosophy,  Martinoau's  Translation,  p.  383.  De  Morgan,  Formal 
Logic,  chap.  ii.  pp.  26-28.  Dr.  Maudsley,  Physiology  and  Pathology  of  Mind,  chap. 
i.  p.  9,  etc.  Lange,  Geschichte  des  Materialismus,  Vol.  i.  pp.  68,  69. 


IVEBSITY 

PRESENT-VTIVE  OR  PERCEPTIVE 


from  the  senses  and  is  implied  in  the  familiar  sneers  at 
rived  from  consciousness,  as  only  a  sham,  worthless  for  science.  I  ap- 
preciate the  importance  to  psychology  of  knowing  the  physical  and  or- 
ganic conditions  of  mental  action  and  the  value  of  the  results  of  physio- 
logical research.  But  the  facts  which  psychology  seeks  to  know  are 
precisely  the  facts  known  in  consciousness  and  in  no  other  way,  which 
cannot  be  identified  with  the  molecular  motions  of  brain  and  nerve,  and 
which  from  their  very  nature  must  forever  elude  the  investigations  of 
physiology. 

In  the  words  of  J.  S.  Mill  in  reference  to  this  objection  in  his  criticism 
of  Comte,  "  There  is  little  need  for  the  elaborate  refutation  of  a  fallacy 
respecting  which  the  wonder  is  that  it  should  impose  on  any  one." 
And  the  wonder  remains  and  grows,  that  it  is  still  assumed  in  all  the 
thinking  of  the  day  which  denies  the  reality  of  any  knowledge  except 
what  is  derived  from  the  senses.  For  it  is  evident  that  we  do  have 
knowledge  of  our  own  thoughts,  feelings  and  volitions  ;  that  we  do  dis- 
tinguish and  describe  generalization,  deduction,  induction  and  other  in- 
tellectual processes  ;  and  that  all  physical  science  recognizes  itself  as 
amenable  to  laws  of  thought  accordance  with  which  is  essential  to  cor- 
rect results.  It  is  evident  also  that  all  this  knowledge  of  mental  pro- 
cesses can  not  have  been  attained  by  attending  to  the  representations  of 
them  in  memory  ;  for  nothing  can  be  remembered  which  has  not  been 
previously  known.  It  may  be  noticed  also  that,  if  the  fact  that  self- 
consciousness  involves  memory  invalidates  it  as  knowledge,  then  all  sci- 
ence is  invalidated  ;  for  in  every  experiment,  observation  and  course  of 
reasoning  the  conclusion  involves  the  memory  of  the  beginning  and  of 
all  the  steps  in  the  process.  Also,  it  is  true  that  the  mind  can  know 
and  attend  to  more  than  one  object  at  a  time. 

Besides  all  these  errors  and  inconsistencies  involved  in  Comte's  objec- 
tion, the  knowledge  which  it  recognizes  as  real  is  both  inconceivable  and 
unthinkable.  It  requires  me  to  believe  that  I  have  knowledge  of  a  sen- 
sible object  through  perception  without  having  any  knowledge  that  I 
know  it,  without  having  any  knowledge  of  my  perception  or  of  myself 
as  perceiving.  Such  knowledge  is  as  unthinkable  as  a  circular  square  ; 
and  the  affirmation  that  it  exists  is  mere  nonsense. 

Misapplied  analogies  have  helped  to  give  currency  to  this  fallacy. 
It  is  said,  "  The  eye  cannot  see  itself."  De  Morgan  compares  self-con- 
sciousness to  the  inspection  of  a  watch  as  it  runs,  by  a  man  who  cannot 
take  it  to  pieces  and  is  entirely  ignorant  of  machinery  ;  and  adds  :  "  I 
would  not  dissuade  a  student  from  metaphysical  inquiry  ;  on  the  con- 
trary I  would  rather  promote  the  desire  of  entering  on  such  subjects; 
but  I  would  warn  him,  when  he  tries  to  look  down  his  own  throat  with 
a  candle  in  his  hand,  to  take  care  that  he  does  not  set  his  own  head  on 


94  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

fire."  *  But  the  facts  that  an  eye  cannot  see  itself  and  that  a  man  can- 
not look  down  his  own  throat,  do  not  disprove  a  man's  consciousness  of 
his  own  thoughts,  feelings  and  purposes.  Nor  is  there  any  analogy  be- 
tween a  man's  looking  at  the  movement  of  a  machine  external  to  him- 
self, and  his  knowledge  of  his  own  thoughts,  feelings  and  purposes. 

III.  By  consciousness  the  mind  has  knowledge  of  itself  in  its  own 
operations. 

1.  It  is  an  error  held  by  many,  that  in  consciousness  man  knows  only 
mental  operations  but  not  himself  in  those  operations.     The  mind,  it  is 
said,  is  conscious  of  certain  impressions  or  actions  from  which  it  infers 
its  own  existence.     But  this  is  impossible  because  it  ascribes  to  thought 
the  transcendent  power  of  knowing  by  inference  an  elemental  reality 
different  in  kind  from  every  reality  given  in  intuition.     Or,  it  is  said, 
that  the  mind  is  conscious  of  certain  impressions  and  by  a  reflective 
process  combines  these  consciousnesses  into  a  unity  which  is  the  self. 
But  this  is  impossible  because  the  idea  of  an  indivisible  one  is  originated 
in  the  knowledge  of  self;  and  if  not  thus  given  in  consciousness  could 
never  be  known  by  inference ;  and  because  the  unity  attained  would  be 
only  a  unity  of  impressions  or  states  of  consciousness,  not  an  individual 
being.     In  contradiction  to  this  error,  however  defended,  I  affirm  that 
in  every  mental  act  the  knowledge  of  self  is  immediate  and  intuitive. 
In  every  impression  or  act  the  mind  immediately  and  intuitively  knows 
itself  as  the  subject  of  the  impression  or  act. 

This  certainly  is  the  decisive  testimony  of  consciousness;  the  con- 
sciousness that  /  think  is  always  the  consciousness,  It  is  I  icho  think. 
Even  skeptics  who  deny  the  existence  of  a  spirit  or  mind  admit  that 
this  is  the  testimony  of  consciousness.  Ludwig  Noire,  for  example, 
remarks  that  though  a  man  is  one  of  the  most  complicated  of  beings, 
he  always  thinks  of  himself  as  an  individual  and  through  all  life  iden- 
tical. 

The  same  is  the  decision  of  reason.  Thought  without  a  thinker  is 
as  impossible  to  reason,  as  motion  without  a  body  which  moves  and  a 
force  which  moves  it.  Who  is  the  I  that  is  conscious  of  my  thought 
but  not  of  myself  the  thinker  ?  And  what  does  consciousness  of  my 
thought  mean  but  consciousness  of  myself  as  thinking?  The  knowledge 
of  self  is  implicit  but  essential  in  all  knowledge.  Knowledge  without  a 
mind  knowing  is  unthinkable ;  and  all  words  used  to  designate  it  are 
words  without  meaning,  nugatory  symbols  to  express  wrhat  consciousness 
never  gives,  what  mind  cannot  think,  and  what  reason  knows  to  be  im- 
possible. 

2.  Another  error  is  that  we  have  a  greater  certainty  of  our  mental 

*  Formal  Logic,  p.  27i 


PRESENTATIVE   OR  PERCEPTIVE   INTUITION.  95 

operations  than  of  the  existence  of  self.  Mr.  Huxley  says :  "  Is  our 
knowledge  of  anything  we  know  or  feel  more  or  less  than  a  knowledge 
of  states  of  consciousness?  And  our  whole  life  is  made  up  of  such 
states.  Some  of  these  states  we  refer  to  a  cause  we  call  self;  others  to  a 
cause  or  causes  which  may  be  comprehended  under  the  title  not-self. 
But  neither  of  the  existence  of  self  nor  of  that  of  the  not-self  have  we 
nor  can  we  by  any  possibility  have  any  such  unquestioned  and  imme- 
diate certainty  as  we  have  of  the  states  of  consciousness  which  we  con- 
sider to  be  their  effects."  They  are  "  hypothetical  assumptions  which 
cannot  be  proved  or  known  with  the  highest  degree  of  certainty  which 
is  given  by  immediate  consciousness."  *  But  this  also  is  contrary  to 
the  clearest  testimony  of  consciousness;  I  cannot  be  more  certain  of 
my. thought  than  I  am  that  it  is  I  who  think.  It  is  also  contrary  to 
reason ;  for,  since  thought  is  impossible  without  a  thinker,  I  cannot  be 
more  certain  of  the  former  than  of  the  latter. 

3.  There  is  a  third  error  which  belongs  to  the  skepticism  of  Hume. 
He  conceives  of  man  as  simply  recipient  of  impressions.  These  impres- 
sions have  no  objective  reality,  for  they  are  simply  received  in  sense, 
while  no  object  is  perceived.  He  argues  that  we  cannot  infer  their  ob- 
jectivity from  memory  by  the  identity  of  the  representation  with  a  pre- 
sented object ;  for  in  memory  we  have  merely  impressions  similar  to 
certain  previous  impressions ;  my  remembrance  of  a  tree  seen  yesterday 
is  merely  an  impression  similar  to  an  impression  received  yesterday. 
We  cannot  infer  an  objective  reality  by  the  principle  of  causation ;  we 
cannot  infer  that  the  shocks  which  we  feel  are  caused  by  the  outward 
objects  striking  us ;  for  all  that  we  know  of  cause  and  effect  is  antece- 
dence and  sequence  in  time.  We  are  thus  shut  up  in  our  own  subjec- 
tivity, and  the  content  of  the  subjectivity  is  merely  impressions  of  sense, 
and  phantoms  of  those  impressions  surviving  in  memory,  and  cohesion 
of  those  impressions  which  has  arisen  from  their  repeated  association. 
Thought  is  merely  transformed  and  cohering  sensations.  Knowledge 
cannot  break  through  the  conglutinated  encasement  of  subjective  im- 
pressions to  any  objective  reality.  On  this  theory  it  is  impossible  to 
have  knowledge  not  only  of  other  persons,  but  also  of  outward  objects 
and  even  of  ourselves.  Hume  says :  "  When  I  enter  intimately  into 
what  I  call  myself,  I  always  stumble  on  some  particular  perception  or 
other  of  heat  or  cold,  light  or  shade,  love  or  hatred,  pain  or  pleasure. 
I  never  catch  myself  at  any  time  without  a  sensation  and  never  can  ob- 
serve anything  but  the  sensation."  Another  "  may,  perhaps,  perceive 
something  simple  and  continued  which  he  calls  himself,  though  I  am 
sure  there  is  no  such  principle  hi  me.  But  setting  aside  some  meta- 

*  Lay  Sermons :  Descartes,  p.  359. 


96  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

physicians  of  this  kind,  I  may  venture  to  affirm  of  the  rest  of  mankind 
that  they  are  nothing  but  a  bundle  or  collection  of  different  perceptions 
which  succeed  each  other."  *  This  position  of  Hume  has  found  distin- 
guished defenders  at  the  present  day.  J.  S.  Mill  says :  "  Mind  is  noth- 
ing but  a  series  of  our  sensations  (to  which  must  now  be  added  our  in- 
ternal feelings),  as  they  actually  occur,  with  the  addition  of  infinite 
possibilities  of  feeling  requiring  for  their  actual  realization  conditions 
which  may  or  may  not  take  place,  but  which  as  possibilities  are  always 
in  existence,  and  many  of  them  present."  f  Prof.  Clifford  says  in 
plainer  language :  "  The  perceiving  self  is  reduced  to  the  whole  aggre- 
gate of  feelings  linked  together  and  succeeding  one  another  in  a  certain 
manner."  "  The  mind  is  to  be  regarded  as  a  stream  of  feelings  which 
runs  parallel  to  and  simultaneously  with  a  certain  part  of  the  action  of 
the  body — that  is  to  say,  that  particular  part  of  the  action  of  the  brain 
in  which  the  cerebrum  and  the  sensory  tract  are  excited."  J  So  Her- 
bert Spencer  speaks  of  the  mind  as  "  being  composed  of  feelings,  and 
the  relations  between  feelings,  and  the  aptitudes  of  feelings  for  entering 
into  relations  varying  with  their  kinds."  § 

This  error  also,  like  the  two  preceding,  is  contrary  both  to  conscious- 
ness and  to  reason.  No  man  is  conscious  of  himself  as  a  series  of  sensa- 
tions. And  it  is  contrary  to  reason,  for  it  supposes  sensations  existing 
without  any  subject,  feelings  with  no  one  who  feels ;  it  supposes  these 
sensations  to  be  conscious  of  other  sensations,  these  phenomena  to  ap- 
pear with  no  one  to  whom  they  appear,  and  to  be  conscious  of  other 
phenomena ;  it  supposes  the  sensations  in  a  lifelong  series  to  be  severally 
conscious  of  their  unity  with  other  sensations  in  the  series  and  of  the 
continuity  and  identity  of  the  series.  H.  Spencer  speaks  of  feelings  as 
combining  and  decomposing,  cohering,  agglutinating  and  repelling. 
This  is  an  hypostasizing  of  sensations  of  a  kind  never  surpassed  by  the 
entities  and  quiddities  of  Mediaeval  Scholasticism  and  strangely  out  of 
place  in  this  century  and  especially  among  its  scientists.  And  while 
hypostasizing  sensations,  it  degrades  the  mind  from  its  self-consciousness 
and  makes  it  an  indefinite  composite  of  its  own  sensations. 

Each  of  the  three  errors  logically  issues  in  universal  skepticism, 
otherwise  called  complete  Agnosticism.  We  see  in  them  the  contortions 
of  intelligence  in  its  vain  endeavors  to  swallow  itself. 

4.  The  mind  is  conscious  of  self  only  in  its  operations  by  which  it  re- 
veals itself  in  its  own  consciousness,  not  "as  an  entity  existing  separate 
from  its  own  intelligence,  sensibility  and  volitions. 

*  Treatise  of  Human  Nature ;  Book  I.  Part  IV.  Section  VI. 
f  Examination  of  Hamilton ;  Vol.  I.  p.  253. 
J  Clifford's  Lectures  and  Essays,  Vol.  I  p.  288 ;  Vol.  II.  p.  57. 
I  Psychology,  Vol.  I.  p.  193. 


PRESEXTATIVE  OR  PERCEPTIVE  INTUITION.  97 

IV.  In  self-consciousness  man  has  knowledge  of  himself  as  an  indi- 
vidual and,  in  the  remembrance  of  the  past,  of  his  own  identity.  By 
individual  I  mean  an  indivisible  being,  incapable  of  being  disparted 
into  two  or  more  beings,  and  by  virtue  of  its  own  indivisibility  disparted 
from  all  else  and  incapable  of  being  blended  into  or  lost  in  anything 
else. 

The  mind  conscious  of  itself  in  its  own  various  and  continuous  opera- 
tions is  always  conscious  of  itself  as  one  and  the  same  identical  indi- 
vidual. And  in  whatever  complex  wholes  it  finds  itself  united  with 
other  beings  it  never  loses  itself  in  the  complex  whole,  but  is  always 
conscious  of  itself  in  its  individuality  and  identity. 

In  sense-perception  the  mind  is  also  conscious  of  itself  as  distinct 
from  the  outward  world,  which  it  knows  as  other  than  itself.  Thus  in 
thought  the  mind  is  capable  of  identifying  itself  as  the  subject  of  its 
own  operations,  of  differentiating  itself  from  others,  and  then  of  com- 
prehending itself  in  a  complex  whole  in  its  relation  to  others. 

Prof.  Bowne  suggests  that  the  unity  of  the  thinking  subject  is  not 
given  in  consciousness,  but  it  is  rather  a  condition  of  all  conscious- 
ness. *  If  he  means  that  the  knowledge  of  self  is  present  implicitly  or 
explicitly  in  all  knowledge,  it  is  true.  But  it  is  not  exactly  accurate 
to  call  it  a  condition  of  all  consciousness,  because  it  is  itself  an  act  of 
consciousness.  The  professor's  argument  that  "  consciousness  does  not 
tell  us  how  we  are  made,'*  is  more  witty  than  solid,  since  the  question 
is  not  "  How  am  I  made  ? "  but  simply,  do  I  know  myself  to  be  one 
person  and  the  same  one  to-day  that  I  was  yesterday  and  have  been 
during  my  life,  or  am  I  now  or  have  I  been  during  my  life  two  or 
three  persons  or  no  person  at  all  ?  Others  explain  our  belief  of  our 
own  existence  and  individuality  as  a  rational  intuition ;  but,  since  it  is 
the  knowledge  of  a  particular  fact  and  not  of  a  universal  principle,  it 
does  not  accord  with  the  definition  of  rational  intuition.  This  know- 
ledge is  a  primitive  datum  of  consciousness,  since,  if  it  were  taken 
away,  all  knowledge  and  thought  would  cease.  But  it  is  nevertheless 
a  datum  of  consciousness,  that. is,  the  knowledge  of  it  is  given  in 
consciousness.  The  only  explanation  of  its  origin,  which  is  at  once 
reasonable  and  accordant  with  the  decisive  testimony  of  consciousness 
itself,  is  that  the 

"  Spirit  that  lives  throughout, 
"  Vital  in  every  part," 

is  in  all  its  powers  and  acts  conscious  of  itself  as  one  identical  Ego.  It 
is  in  this  that  the  idea  of  individual  being  originates.  Descartes  (Medi- 
tatio  Tertia)  says :  "  of  the  clear  and  distinct  ideas  of  corporeal  things, 

*  Studies  in  Theism,  p.  387. 


98  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

some  seem  to  be  borrowed  from  the  idea  of  myself,  as  substance,  dura- 
tion and  number."  M.  Royer  Collard  says :  "  The  Ego  is  the  only 
unity  which  is  given  us  immediately  by  nature.  We  do  not  find  it  by 
observation  in  anything  else."  *  Lotze  has  made  an  extended  exami- 
nation of  theories  on  this  point,  coming  back  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  only  sufficient  conception  is  that  of  one  indivisible  soul,  f 

It  must  be  noticed  that  we  are  concerned  only  with  the  question  or 
fact,  whether  I  am  conscious  of  myself  always  as  one  and  the  same. 
No  one  pretends  that  man  in  self-consciousness  knows  intuitively  the 
answers  to  metaphysical  questions  by  which  men  try  to  explain  this 
fact ;  as,  whether  the  soul  is  "  a  simple  substance,"  or  "  a  persistent 
force,"  or  "  a  monad,"  or  "  the  ordered  unity  of  many  elements."  It  is 
enough  that  I  know  myself  as  an  individual  being  persisting  in  iden- 
tity, the  subject  of  various  qualities  and  powers  and  of  many  successive 
acts  and  conditions. 

V.  In  self-consciousness  man  knows  himself  as  a  rational  free-agent, 
susceptible  of  rational  motives  and  emotions,  and  thus  knows  himself 
as  a  person. 

The  distinctive  qualities  of  a  personal  being  are  reason,  suscepti- 
bility to  rational  motives  and  emotions,  and  free-will.  In  the  exercise 
of  rational  intuition  man  is  conscious  of  himself  as  Reason.  In  his 
interest  in  truth,  in  right,  in  virtue,  in  beauty,  in  worthy  ends  of 
action  and  in  God,  he  is  conscious  of  himself  as  the  subject  of  rational 
motives  and  emotions.  And  in  every  free  choice  and  volition  he  is 
conscious  of  himself  as  free-will ;  he  knows  his  freedom  of  will  in 
knowing  himself.  Dr.  Mansel  says  truly :  "  The  freedom  of  the  will  is 
so  far  from  being,  as  it  is  generally  considered,  a  controvertible  ques- 
tion in  philosophy,  that  it  is  the  fundamental  postulate  without  which 
all  action  and  all  speculation,  philosophy  in  all  its  branches  and  human 
consciousness  itself  would  be  impossible."  J  Thus  man  knows  himself 
as  the  subject  of  all  the  distinctive  attributes  of  a  person,  and  thereby 
distinguishes  himself  from  irrational  and  impersonal  beings.  Thus  in 
self-consciousness  originates  the  idea  ef  personal  being  as  distinguished 
from  the  impersonal.  We  cannot  have  any  idea  of  a  personal  being 
except  as  we  find  the  personal  in  our  consciousness  of  ourselves  as 
rational  and  free  beings.  The  elements  of  personality,  without  our 
consciousness  of  them  in  ourselves,  would  be  as  inconceivable  as  colors 
to  a  man  born  blind,  or  sounds  to  a  man  born  deaf. 

Our  knowledge  of  personality  is  positive  not  negative.  I  do  not 
know  it  merely  as  distinguished  from  the  not-me ;  I  know  it  positively 

*  Quoted  Mansel  Prolegomena  Logica,  p.  122. 

f  Mikrokosmus,  B.  ii.  kap.  1. 

J  Metaphysics :  Encyclopedia  Brit.  8th  Ed.  Vol.  xiv.  p.  618. 


PRESENTATIVE  OR  PERCEPTIVE  INTUITION.  99 

as  realized  in  myself.  It  is  the  impersonal  which  I  define  by  the  ex- 
clusion of  the  personal,  the  not-me  by  the  exclusion  of  the  me. 

When  I  have  found  personality  in  myself  I  can  recognize  it  in 
another.  When  I  know  myself  as  I,  I  can  know  another  person  as 
Thou ;  and  I  know  him  as  TIwu,  and  not  merely  as  not-me. 

When  man  knows  personality  in  himself  then  and  only  then  is  he 
capable  of  knowing  it  in  God.  For  without  the  knowledge  of  person- 
ality in  himself,  the  question  whether  a  personal  God  exists  would  be 
meaningless ;  it  not  only  could  not  be  answered,  it  could  not  even  be 
asked ;  man  has  no  knowledge  of  personality  except  as  he  first  has 
known  it  in  himself. 

I  have  said  that  I  have  positive  knowledge  of  personality ;  I  know 
it  not  merely  as  distinguished  from  the  not-me,  but  as  realized  in 
myself.  Therefore  I  cannot  concur  with  Lotze  when  he  says :  "  Com- 
plete personality  is  to  be  found  only  in  God ;  while  in  all  finite  spirits 
there  exists  only  a  weak  imitation  of  personality."*  Man's  knowledge 
of  his  own  personality  arises  antecedent  to  his  knowledge  of  person- 
ality in  God ;  and  he  knows  it  in  himself  as  a  real  personality.  In  the 
"  /  am  "  of  self-consciousness  he  declares  his  clear  and  certain  know- 
ledge of  himself  as  a  person  conscious  of  reason,  of  susceptibility  to 
rational  motives  and  emotions,  and  of  free  self-determination.  Amid  the 
changes  and  evanescence  of  natural  things  he  knows  himself  persisting 
the  same  in  the  strength  of  his  personality, 

"  One  soul  against  the  flesh  of  all  mankind." 

I  20,  Kant's  Distinction  of  the  Ego  and  Cosmos  as  Pheno- 
menon from  the  Noumenon  or  thing  in  itself. 

Kant  teaches  that  the  real  Ego  is  not  the  Ego  known  in  self- 
consciousness,  but  is  the  Ego  existing  as  a  Thing  in  itself,  out  of  all 
relation  to  our  faculties  and  known  only  as  a  Noumenon  or  necessary 
idea  of  Reason.  He  affirms  that  the  Reason  demands  the  existence  of 
the  Ego  as  necessary  to  knowledge ;  but  he  argues  that  because  we  are 
conscious  of  ourselves  only  in  our  mental  operations,  all  that  we  really 
attain  is  a  synthesis  of  those  operations,  which,  by  a  paralogism  or 
necessary  illusion  of  the  Reason,  we  mistake  for  the  Ego.  The  real 
Ego  must  lie  beneath  all  our  mental  operations  and  out  of  all  relation 
to  our  faculties  as  a  thing  in  itself.  This  noumenal  Ego  I  will  call 
the  transcendental  Ego.  Kant's  doctrine  is  the  same  respecting  the 
Cosmos.  He  says :  "  All  our  intuition  is  only  the  presentation  (  Vors- 
tettung)  of  phenomena ;  and  the  things  which  we  intuit  are  not  in 
themselves  as  our  presentation  of  them ; "  "  The  Ego  is  but  the 

*  Mikrokosmus :  Vol.  iii.  p.  576. 


100  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

consciousness  of  my  thought ;"  "  We  intuit  ourselves  only  as  we 
are  internally  affected  by  ourselves,  that  is,  we  know  the  Self  or 
Ego  only  as  phenomenon,  not  as  it  is  in  itself/'  The  unity  or  synthesis 
of  apperceptions  which  is  mistaken  for  the  Ego  "  is  a  Thought,  not  an 
intuition."  * 

I  propose  to  show  that  the  transcendental  Ego  is  not  a  noumenon 
of  the  reason,  but  a  fictitious  creation  for  which  there  is  no  reasonable 
ground,  and  the  postulating  of  which  as  the  only  real  Ego  is  incom- 
patible with  the  reality  of  knowledge.  The  same  is  true  of  any  sup- 
posed "  thing  in  itself"  constituting  the  reality  of  material  things ;  but 
for  the  sake  of  simplicity  I  confine  the  discussion  to  the  Ego. 

I.  The  fundamental  error  of  Kant's  system  is  its  phenomenalism. 

His  "  intuition  of  sense  "  which  corresponds  to  both  sense-perception 
and  self-consciousness,  is  not  a  true  intuition,  but  only  a  susceptibility 
of  impressions ;  all  that  is  given  in  sense  is  impressions.  Thus  he 
starts  from  the  very  position  of  Hume  whose  refutation  was  the  object 
which  he  was  intending  to  accomplish.  But  these  impressions  are  dis- 
integrated and  cannot  by  sense  be  comprehended  in  a  unity.  The 
mind  however  is  so  constituted  that  it  necessarily  supplies  the  purely 
subjective  forms  of  space  and  time,  by  which  the  impressions  are 
brought  into  unity.  But  this  unity  is  not  sufficient  for  reflective 
thought  which  expresses  itself  in  general  propositions.  Then  the  mind, 
which  in  this  aspect  he  calls  the  understanding,  is  so  constituted  that 
it  necessarily  supplies  the  purely  subjective  categories  of  substance  and 
quality,  cause  and  dependence,  and  others ;  and  the  categorical  judg- 
ments, such  as  mathematical  axioms,  the  causal  judgment,  and  others. 
Thus  the  understanding  attains  to  unities  which  transcend  sense.  Yet 
the  mind  cannot  stop  with  these ;  knowing  its  impressions,  not  only  in 
the  unities  of  space  and  time,  but  also  in  the  unities  of  substance  and 
cause  and  other  categories,  it  traces  their  relations  and  attains  the 
highest  unities,  The  Ego,  The  World  and  God.  The  mind  in  this  action 
Kant  calls  Reason,  and  these  three  unities  he  calls  the  ideas  of  Reason. 

In  all  this  Kant  differs  from  Hume,  though  starting  with  him  in  phe- 
nomenalism. Hume  recognizes  no  intellectual  faculty  beyond  sense ; 
man  has  no  power  to  pierce  the  impressions  of  sense  and  to  know  any- 
thing beyond.  Kant  departs  from  Hume  and  overthrows  his  skepticism 
by  demonstrating  that  the  mind  has  supersensual  powers,  that  these  are 
essential  to  the  possibility  of  knowledge,  and  that  what  the  mind  con- 
tributes in  its  own  intelligence  is  as  real  as  what  is  contributed  by  sense. 
This  is  a  great  service  which  Kant  has  rendered  to  philosophy. 

But  because  he  has  only  impressions  of  sense  with  which  to  start, 

*  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  Transcendental  ^Esthetic,  $9.  Transcendental  Ana- 
lytic, B.  i.  H  12-15,  20,  21.  Transcendental  Dialectic,  B.  ii.  chap.  1. 


PRESENTATIVE  OR  PERCEPTIVE  INTUITION.  1Q1 

the  mind  in  its  intellectual  processes  has  nothing  but  impressions  to 
bring  into  its  unities  of  thought.  Its  highest  attainments,  the  three 
ideas  of  reason,  are  demanded  indeed  by  reason  and  essential  to  solve 
its  problems  and  to  complete  the  processes  of  thought,  but  remain 
mere  ideas  void  of  content  and  without  objective  reality.  Therefore 
the  utmost  which  Kant  attains  is  that  knowledge  is  valid  for  all  men  in 
the  sense  that  all  men  must  think  so ;  and  is  objectively  real  so  far,  and 
only  so  far  as  the  experience  of  sense  extends.  Knowledge  can  never 
pass  beyond  the  subjective  impressions;  the  Ego  of  consciousness  is  a 
mere  synthesis  of  apperceptions,  and  the  real  Ego  is  a  thing  in  itself 
out  of  all  relation  to  our  faculties. 

If  we  correct  the  phenomenalism  which  vitiates  his  system  at  the 
start,  if  we  substitute  a  real  intuition  of  self  and  of  the  outward  object 
instead  of  the  mere  susceptibility  of  impression  which  he  calls  sense,  if, 
instead  of  splitting  the  mind  in  three  and  setting  up  an  unreal  antithesis 
of  the  regulative  principles  of  thought  among  themselves,  we  recognize 
the  one  indivisible  mind  as  endowed  with  the  power  of  rational  intuition, 
then  Kant's  system  beginning  with  the  knowledge  of  being,  would  go  on 
in  the  knowledge  of  being  till  it  culminated  in  the  knowledge  of  God, 
the  absolute  being ;  then  it  would  demonstrate  that  the  power  of  man, 
according  to  the  constituent  elements  of  his  reason,  to  know  the  univer- 
sal principles  and  laws  which  regulate  all  thought  and  action  is  essential 
to  the  possibility  of  knowledge ;  then  it  would  establish  the  fact  that 
particular  reality  is  known  as  such  by  presentative  intuition,  and  known 
in  its  universal  relations  by  rational  intuition;  then  it  would  demon- 
strate that  every  particular  being,  having  relations  to  the  universal 
Reason,  must  have  its  ultimate  ground  and  law  in  the  universal  and 
absolute  Reason.  Corrected  as  I  have  suggested,  the  system  of  Kant 
becomes  a  philosophical  basis  of  Theism,  demonstrating  that  not  merely 
the  idea,  but  the  existence  of  God  is  the  necessary  demand  of  Reason, 
without  which  human  Reason  can  never  solve  its  necessary  problems 
and  sinks  either  into  vacuity  or  hopeless  contradiction,  and  human 
knowledge  is  unreal  and  impossible. 

This  correction  Kant  does  not  make.  His  system  therefore  stands  as 
another  exemplification  of  the  fact  that,  if  primitive  knowledge  is  as- 
sumed to  be  of  impressions  only,  the  knowledge  of  being  can  never  be 
attained  and  complete  agnosticism  is  the  necessary  and  only  issue.  Phe- 
nomenalism is  a  monster  which  gives  birth  to  various  theories  of  know- 
ledge and  devours  them  all  as  soon  as  they  are  born. 

Kant  differs  from  Hume  in  recognizing,  not  merely  super-sensible 
powers,  but  also  the  existence  of  the  "  thing  in  itself."  We  know  that 
this  thing  in  itself  is,  though  we  do  not  know  what  it  is.  Thus  we  have 
real  knowledge ;  the  phenomena  themselves  are  real  as  requiring  in  our 


102  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

intellectual  apprehension  of  them  the  assumption  of  a  thing  in  itself, 
unlike  the  phenomena,  and  of  which  we  can  know  only  that  it  is.  Thus 
what  is  known  in  human  knowledge  shows  itself  as  a  small  island  in  the 
ocean  of  unknowable  reality. 

But  on  account  of  the  phenomenalism  which  vitiates  his  system  at  the 
root,  this  theory  of  the  thing  in  itself  does  not  redeem  his  theory  from 
agnosticism. 

II.  Tkis  theory  involves  the  error  that  it  presents  the  noumenon  or 
the  necessary  idea  of  reason  and  the  phenomenon  as  antithetic  and  reci- 
procally exclusive ;  all  that  is  known  through  sense-perception,  self-con- 
sciousness, rational  intuition  or  reflective  thought  is  phenomenon,  not 
the  true  reality.  Of  the  true  reality  we  only  know  that  it  is,  not  what 
it  is.  The  reason  is  not  here  recognized  as  revealing  the  rational  ground, 
the  rational  principles,  laws,  ideals  and  ends  of  objects  known  in  sense- 
perception,  self-consciousness-  and  reflective  thought,  and  thus  in  har- 
mony with  and  supplementing  those  faculties.  The  line  of  demarcation 
separates  all  that  is  known  by  the  human  faculties,  on  the  one  hand,  as 
phenomenon,  from  the  thing  in  itself  out  of  all  relation  to  our  faculties, 
on  the  other  hand,  as  noumenon.  The  two  spheres  are  antithetic  and 
reciprocally  exclusive.  Reason,  therefore,  giving  only  these  noumena, 
effects  nothing  towards  lifting  the  phenomenalism  of  this  theory  into 
real  knowledge.  So  far  as  all  that  is  known  through  human  faculties  is 
concerned,  the  phenomenalism  remains  complete;  and  to  this  extent 
the  most  thorough-going  phenomenalism  is  involved  in  the  doctrine  of 
the  thing  in  itself. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  thing  in  itself,  being  out  of  all  relation  to  our 
faculties,  is  unknowable.  Thus  the  final  utterance  of  reason  is  that  man 
knows  that  he  is  incapable  of  knowledge. 

In  this  theory  the  faculties  of  presentative  intuition  and  reflective 
thought  on  the  one  hand  and  of  Reason  on  the  other  are  set  forth  as 
giving  results  antithetic  and  reciprocally  exclusive,  and  no  way  is  open 
for  bringing  them  into  harmony  as  complementary  and  interdependent 
powers.  Hence  Kant's  philosophy  has  issued  historically  in  two  anti- 
thetic systems  of  thought,  each  partial  and  erroneous.  On  the  one 
hand,  it  issued  in  those  wonderful  creations  of  transcendental  and  false 
rationalism,  which  from  it  "  rose  like  an  exhalation," 

"  Cloud-towers  by  ghostly  masons  wrought 
In  shadowy  thoroughfares  of  thought." 

On  the  other  hand  it  issued  in  systems  of  phenomenalism ;  and  at  this 
day  Kant  is  habitually  appealed  to  by  skeptics  as  having  demonstrated 
beyond  further  controversy  that  the  reason  ultimately  breaks  down  in 
hopeless  self-contradiction  and  proves  itself  incompetent,  and  that 
therefore  man's  knowledge  is  limited  to  the  phenomena  of  sense. 


PRESENT  ATI  VE  OR  PERCEPTIVE  INTUITION.  103 

Kant  himself  did  not  intend  that  his  theory  of  knowledge  should  be 
confounded  with  phenomenalism.  It  was  the  skepticism  of  Hume 
which  moved  him  to  write  the  Criticism  of  the  powers  of  the  human 
mind  in  order  to  ascertain  the  real  conditions  and  scope  of  human 
knowledge.  In  it  he  has  established  principles  subversive  of  phe- 
nomenalism. In  the  very  paragraph  from  which  one  of  the  citations 
at  the  beginning  of  this  discussion  was  taken,  he  says :  "  My  own  ex- 
istence is  certainly  not  mere  phenomenon,  much  less  mere  illusion." 
And  in  another  volume  he  says:  "When  I  think,  I  am  conscious  that 
my  Ego  thinks  in  me  and  not  some  other  being.  I  conclude  therefore 
that  this  thinking  in  me  does  not  inhere  in  another  thing  outside  of  me, 
but  in  myself;  consequently  that  I  am  a  substance,  that  is,  that  I  exist 
by  myself  without  being  a  predicate  of  another  being."  *  And  it  is 
evident  that  if,  instead  of  regarding  the  presentative  intuition  as  giving 
only  phenomena  and  the  Reason  as  merely  giving  empty  ideas  of  the 
Ego,  the  Cosmos  and  God  as  noumena  or  things  in  themselves  to  which 
consciousness  can  give  no  content,  he  had  recognized  the  principles  that 
knowledge  is  the  intellectual  equivalent  of  reality,  that  essential  reality 
is  known  to  us  first  in  some  particular  concrete  object,  that  reason  is  the 
power  of  interpreting  and  vindicating  particular  realities  in  the  light  of 
universal  principles,  laws,  ideals  and  worth,  he  would  have  given  the 
world  a  system  combining  the  profoundest  philosophy  with  the  purest 
theism,  and  demonstrating  the  possibility  of  establishing  theism  on  phil- 
osophical grounds. 

III.  In  regarding  the  Ego  of  consciousness  as  merely  phenomenal 
and  on  this  ground  postulating  an  Ego  existing  as  a  thing  in  itself  as  a 
necessary  idea  of  reason,  Kant  misinterprets  and  contradicts  conscious- 
ness. 

As  far  back  as  memory  extends  I  know  myself  as  the  one  indivisible 
and  identical  subject  of  various  qualities  and  of  a  continuous  succession 
of  actions.  I  do  not  know  myself  as  a  phenomenon  transient  always  in 
the  succession  of -time;  on  the  contrary,  it  is  only  as  I  know  myself  as 
persisting  through  all  changes  in  my  individuality  and  identity,  that 
I  have  knowledge  of  the  succession  of  events ;  I  do  not  float  in  the 
succession  of  events,  but  stand  the  one  same  subject  of  them.  I  do  not 
know  myself  as  a  thought  or  act  but  as  the  thinker  or  the  actor ;  not  as 
mere  qualities  but  as  the  subject  of  many  qualities.  The  consciousness 
of  self  is  knowledge  of  the  agent  in  the  action,  of  the  substance  in  its 
properties,  of  the  being  in  its  manifestations.  It  reaches  quite  to  the 
center  of  the  idea  of  being  and  quite  to  its  surface  in  its  manifestations. 
This  power,  knowing  itself  in  consciousness  as  rational,  sensitive,  effi- 

*  Vorlesungen  iiber  die  philos.  Religionslehre ;  Leipzig  Ed.  1817:  p.  80,  quoted 
Feuerbach,  Das  Wesen  des  Christenthums,  s.  58. 


104  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

cient,  free,  is  the  Ego.  Consciousness  affirms  it  and  gives  no  hint  of  any 
other.  If  consciousness  is  false  in  this  testimony  it  is  false  in  all ;  if  I 
do  not  know  my  own  existence  I  do  not  know  anything. 

Therefore  Kant's  conception  of  the  Ego  of  consciousness  as  merely  a 
product  of  thought  in  the  synthesis  of  many  successive  apperceptions  in 
the  unity  of  a  series  is  a  misinterpretation  and  contradiction  of  the  en- 
tire testimony  of  consciousness.  And  it  is  only  in  this  misinterpretation 
that  he  finds  any  necessity  for  postulating  the  transcendental  Ego.  The 
transcendental  Ego  is  a  fiction  created  to  meet  an  imaginary  necessity 
founded  on  a  mistake.  So  soon  as  we  apprehend  the  Ego  of  conscious- 
ness in  its  true  significance,  no  necessity  of  reason  requires  the  postula- 
ting of  any  other ;  on  the  contrary  reason  forbids  it  as  involving  the 
cessation  of  intelligence.  Take  away  from  intelligence  the  Ego  of  con- 
sciousness, and  nothing  is  left;  take  from  the  "I  think"  or  "I  exist" 
the  J,  and  no  thought  and  no  consciousness  of  existence  remains. 

IV.  The  transcendental  Ego  is  not  a  necessary  idea  of  reason ;  it  is 
not  a  noumenon  in  any  true  sense ;  reason  makes  no  demand  for  it. 

1.  The  postulating  of  a  transcendental  Ego  or  thing  in  itself  is  really 
identical  with  the  puerile  attempt  to  conceive  of  a  substance  or  subject 
without  qualities,  as  if,  to  use  Coleridge's  illustration,  the  substance  were 
a  pin-cushion  and  the  qualities  the  pins ;  and  as  if  the  qualities  might 
be  pulled  out  like  pins  and  the  substance  remain.     But  the  power  which 
manifests  itself  in  qualities  and  acts  is  of  the  essence  of  the  subject  or 
substance  manifested.     A  substance  without  qualities  is  unthinkable 
and  a  theory  which  implies  it  is  unreasonable  and  foolish.     The  know- 
ledge of  pure  substance  without  qualities  is  impossible  because  no  such 
substance  exists. 

In  apprehending  the  Ego  in  thought  the  mind  must  apprehend  it  in 
its  two  real  aspects,  as  subject  and  attribute,  or  substance  and  quality ; 
"  I  think,"  "  I  exist."  But  we  do  not  predicate  a  mere  phenomenon 
of  an  unthinkable  substance ;  for  if  so,  the  conscious  being  itself  would 
be  a  phenomenal  non-being,  and  the  subject  which  is  postulated  as  its 
reality  would  be  a  nugatory  symbol,  a  zero,  signifying  only  the  cessa- 
tion of  intelligence.  The  category  of  substance  or  subject  and  quality 
is  only  our  way  of  apprehending  the  one  known  Ego  in  its  two  real 
aspects,  as  the  individual  being  persisting' in  identity,  as  the  subject  of 
varied  qualities  and  successive  actions. 

2.  It  is  contrary  to  reason  to  postulate  as  the  real  Ego  that  which  is 
unknown,  and  much  more  that  which  is  known  to  be  essentially  dif- 
ferent  from   the   Ego  of  consciousness.      Reason   can   postulate   the 
existence  of  a  being  beyond   our   observation   only  to   account   for 
observed  realities.     The  being  postulated  must  possess  all  the  poten- 
cies which  account  for  the  observed   phenomena.      If  I  postulate  a 


PRESENTATIVE  OR  PERCEPTIVE  INTUITION.  1Q5 

substance  of  qualities,  it  must  be  a  substance  having  potencies  ade- 
quate to  manifest  itself  in  these  qualities.  If  I  postulate  a  cause 
for  an  observed  effect,  the  cause  must  be  endowed  with  the  very 
energies  which  produce  the  effect.  If  I  postulate  a  transcendental 
Ego  as  the  real  being  appearing  in  the  Ego  of  consciousness,  it 
must  be  the  continuously  identical  person  in  which  are  active  the 
potencies  appearing  in  the  Ego  of  consciousness,  such  as  Reason,  sensi- 
bility, free-will.  If  so,  this  postulated  Ego  is  known  to  be  a  rational, 
conscious  and  free  person ;  and  thus  is  identical  with  the  Ego  of  con- 
sciousness and  there  is  no  legitimate  reason  for  postulating  it.  If, 
on  the  contrary,  I  say  that  this  Ego  is  wholly  unknowable,  then  all 
reason  for  postulating  it  ceases;  for  a  being  wholly  unknowable  can- 
not, be  the  being  that  manifests  or  reveals  itself  in  the  Ego  of  con- 
sciousness. 

Kant  goes  farther  than  merely  to  say  the  transcendental  Ego  is 
unknown.  He  positively  affirms  that  it  is  not  the  same  with  the  Ego 
of  consciousness.  Then  we  must  affirm  that  the  real  Ego  is  not  a 
person  endowed  with  reason  and  free-will  and  capable  of  intelligence ; 
for  these  are  precisely  the  endowments  of  the  Ego  of  consciousness. 
For  the  same  reason  we  must  affirm  that  it  is  not  a  being  in  any  sense 
which  has  any  meaning  to  a  human  mind. 

3.  The  doctrine  of  the  transcendental  Ego  assumes  that  the  mind 
can  create  in  thought  an  element  of  reality  never  given  in  intuition  ; 
this  we  have  already  seen  to  be  impossible.  The  supposition  is  that 
consciousness  does  not  give  the  knowledge  of  real  being,  but  only  of 
phenomena.  How  then  is  the  idea  of  being  obtained  ?  It  cannot  be 
created  by  the  mind  in  thought ;  it  cannot  be  given  in  rational  intui- 
tion. The  existence  of  any  such  rational  intuition  Kant  himself 
denies.  Rational  intuition  gives  the  knowledge  of  universal  prin- 
ciples, not  of  particular  beings  and  facts.  The  truths  which  it  gives 
enables  us  to  infer  the  existence  and  qualities  of  beings  never  ob- 
served ;  but  no  intelligent  philosopher  is  so  rash  as  to  affirm  a 
transcendent  power  of  rational  intuition  competent  to  originate  the 
knowledge  or  idea  of  being.  Therefore  this  theory  of  the  thing  in 
itself  leaves  no  way  of  accounting  for  the  existence  in  the  mind  of  the 
idea  of  real  being,  which  it  so  freely  postulates. 

So  then  it  is  Kant's  own  private  understanding  which  falls  into 
paralogisms  and  antinomies,  and  not  the  reason  of  mankind. 

V.  The  postulating  of  the  transcendental  Ego  discredits  reason  by 
making  its  necessary  ideas  fictitious,  that  is,  ideas  of  no  reality. 

Kant  teaches  that  there  are  three  necessary  ideas  of  Reason,  the  Ego, 
the  Cosmos  and  God.  These  ideas  the  pure  or  speculative  Reason  must 
have;  they  are  indispensable  to  complete  the  necessary  processes  of 


106  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

human  thought  and  to  solve  the  necessary  and  ultimate  problems  of 
Reason.  But  Kant  also  insists  that  Reason  knows  these,  its  own 
necessary  ideas,  to  be  fictions  corresponding  to  no  known  reality. 
In  the  idea  of  the  Ego  reason  necessarily  falls  into  a  paralogism  or 
illusion,  mistaking  the  phenomenal  and  unreal  Ego  of  consciousness 
for  the  true  and  real  Ego.  In  developing  the  idea  of  the  Cosmos 
reason  necessarily  falls  into  irreconcilable  antinomies  and  contradic- 
tions. And  the  idea  of  God  is  .an  empty  idea  without  content  of 
reality.  Thus  in  every  one  of  its  necessary  ideas,  reason  finds  itself 
false  and  untrustworthy.  And  all  this  results  from  the  false  anti- 
thesis of  presentative  and  rational  intuition,  of  phenomenon  and 
noumenon  in  neither  of  which  is  real  knowledge  possible. 

VI.  The  postulating  of  the  transcendental  Ego  contradicts  reason 
and  involves  absurdity. 

It  involves  the  absurdity  inherent  in  all  skepticism  which  denies  the 
possibility  of  knowledge  because  it  is  relative  to  the  faculties  of  the 
subject  knowing,  the  absurdity  that  knowledge  is  impossible  because 
there  is  a  mind  that  knoAvs.  The  postulating  of  a  thing  in  itself  out  of 
relation  to  our  faculties,  as  the  only  real  being,  always  rests  upon  this 
flagrant  absurdity. 

It  further  involves  the  absurdity  of  presupposing  a  knowledge  of  the 
unknowable  as  the  condition  of  knowing  that  knowledge  through  our 
own  faculties  is  unreal.  It  is  impossible  to  criticise  my  own  conscious 
knowledge  as  not  the  knowledge  of  reality,  unless  I  first  have  know- 
ledge of  the  reality  with  which  to  compare  my  own  knowledge.  But 
according  to  the  theory  under  consideration,  the  thing  in  itself  is  utterly 
unknowable.  Besides,  if  we  could  know  the  thing  in  itself,  this  would 
be  conscious  knowledge  through  our  own  faculties  and  therefore  ac- 
cording to  the  theory  not  a  knowledge  of  reality. 

The  theory,  also,  involves  the  absurdity  that  a  man  possesses  a  faculty 
above  his  own  reason  by  which  he  criticises  his  own  reason  and  pro- 
nounces its  necessary  ideas  unreal.  A  brute  is  irrational.  For  that 
very  reason  it  must  be  utterly  unconscious  and  ignorant  of  its  irration- 
ality. It  would  be  necessary  for  it  to  have  reason  in  order  to  rise  above 
the  powers  which  it  now  has  and  to  know  them  as  not  reason.  Reason 
is  the  highest  power  in  man.  Because  it  is  the  highest  it  can  criticise 
the  processes  and  results  of  presentative  intuition,  can  correct  the  illu- 
sions of  sense,  can  infer  the  unknown  from  the  known,  can  interpret 
and  vindicate  to  the  reason  all  that  is  given  in  sense-perception  and 
self-consciousness.  But  it  cannot  transcend  and  criticise  itself;  it  can- 
not criticise  its  own  necessary  ideas  by  comparing  them  with  the  pos- 
sible intelligence  of  an  unknown  and  unknowable  reason  other  than 
itself;  it  cannot  know  itself  to  be  irrational.  And  precisely  on  this 


PRESENTATIVE  OR  PERCEPTIVE  INTUITION.  1Q7 

absurdity  the  theory,  that  the  thing  in  itself  out  of  all  relation  to  our 
faculties  is  the  true  reality,  must  rest.  If  I  am  told  that  I  cannot  know 
that  two  straight  lines  cannot  inclose  a  space,  or  that  every  beginning 
or  change  of  existence  must  have  a  cause,  because  there  may  be  an 
intelligent  being  otherwise  constituted  who  necessarily  believes  the 
contrary,  I  should  know,  to  be  sure,  that  one  of  us  is  a  fool  or  insane, 
but  I  should  know  that  that  one  is  not  I. 

Human  reason  knows  itself  to  be  limited,  but  it  cannot  know  itself 
to  be  irrational.  It  may  know  reason  other  than  itself;  it  may  know 
reason  above  itself,  supreme  and  absolute.  It  must  know  this,  because 
it  is  of  its  essence  to  know  principles  that  are  universally  true,  and 
regulative  of  all  thought  and  energy.  But  that  other  reason  is  still 
known  as  reason  like  itself;  that  supreme  reason  is  still  known  as 
reason  in  which  the  universal  principles  known  to  the  reason  of  the 
man  and  of  which  the  universe  is  the  exponent  and  expression,  are 
eternal. 

When  reason  criticises  itself,  it  can  only  criticise  by  its  own  princi- 
ples. It  can  discover  itself  to  be  false  only  by  discovering  that  its  own 
necessary  principles  are  contradictory  to  each  other.  But  if  this  dis- 
covery were  made  it  would  not  reveal  a  reason  higher  than  our  own  or 
a  reality  transcending  our  intelligence,  but  rather  it  would  reveal  the 
fact  that  unreason  is  universal  and  knowledge  impossible.  For  the 
only  idea  we  can  have  of  reason,  free-will  or  any  attribute  of  personality 
is  that  which  we  obtain  from  our  knowledge  of  those  attributes  in  our- 
selves. And  if  what  we  know  as  reason  is  proved  by  its  self-contradic- 
tion to  be  unreason,  then  the  very  idea  of  reason  perishes.  It  is  a  word 
conveying  no  meaning  to  our  minds ;  it  is  utterly  inconceivable  and 
unthinkable. 

It  is  evident,  now,  that  the  theory  that  knowledge  is  impossible 
because  it  is  relative  to  our  faculties  involves  the  belief  that  the  exist- 
ence of  an  intelligent  being  is  an  absurdity ;  it  would  be  obliged  to 
know  without  any  rational  faculty  of  knowing. 

VII.  The  theory  of  the  thing  in  itself  issues  in  complete  agnosticism. 
It  begins  with  phenomenalism ;  it  discredits  and  contradicts  conscious- 
ness ;  it  gives  as  noumenon  a  fiction  which  is  not  a  necessary  idea  of 
reason  and  is  not  demanded  by  reason ;  it  discredits  and  contradicts 
reason  and  involves  absurdity.  Professing  to  give  the  knowledge  of 
reality  in  its  most  profound  significance  it  issues  in  universal  skepticism 
and  denies  the  possibility  of  knowledge. 

In  reference  to  the  question  "  whether  everything  is  not,  in  the  last 
analysis,  different  from  what  we  believe  we  know  it  to  be,"  Prof.  Lotze 
says,  "  there  is  no  scientific  solution."  This  is  true  in  the  sense  that  we 
cannot  observe  the  thing  in  itself  and,  by  comparison  of  what  we  believe 


108  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

that  we  know  with  it,  answer  the  question  by  the  empirical  method. 
For  the  same  reason  it  is  impossible  for  the  skepticism  expressed  in  the 
question  to  be  established  by  empirical  science.  Prof.  Lotze  adds : 
"  To  this  purposeless  skepticism  mankind  -has  continually  turned  its 
back.  The  human  reason  has  always  had  the  living  self-assurance  that, 
while  it  cannot  attain  to  all  truth,  it  yet  possesses  in  that  which  is 
necessary  to  its  thought,  not  merely  necessary  belief,  but  truth  likewise. 
It  has  always  believed  in  such  a  rationality  of  the  world  as  that  thought 
and  reality  correspond  to  one  another,  and  that  the  former  enjoys  a 
limited  and  not  misleading  access  to  the  latter."  *  The  considerations 
which  I  have  adduced  demonstrate  that  we  may  go  farther  than  this. 
It  is  true,  not  only  that  the  human  reason  always  has  had  this  self- 
assurance  and  that  the  skepticism  expressed  in  the  question  can  have 
no  scientific  basis,  but  also  that  reason  positively  knows  that  this  skep- 
ticism contradicts  reason,  is  absurd  in  itself  and  incompatible  with  the 
possibility  of  knowledge.  So  Dr.  Dorner  says :  "  Were  we  to  accept 
Kant's  doubt  as  to  the  reality  of  the  Ego  of  consciousness,  self-con- 
sciousness itself  would  crumble  to  pieces  and  all  certainty  about  self  or 
anything  else  would  fall  away."  f 

The  agnostic  issue  of  this  theory  of  knowledge  is  humorously  ex- 
pressed by  the  elder  Scaliger ;  "  We  have  no  knowledge  of  substances 
but  only  of  their  accidents.  Who  can  define  substance  except  in  the 
miserable  words,  something  subsisting  f  Evidently  our  knowledge  is  but 
a  shadow  in  the  sunshine.  As  when  the  stork  played  his  practical  joke 
on  the  fox,  the  fox  could  only  lick  the  outside  of  the  bottle,  but  could 
not  touch  the  soup  it  contained,  so  we  in  perception  know  only  the  ex- 
ternal properties,  not  the  interior  reality."  |  Thus  in  the  irrepressible 
desire  of  knowledge  implanted  in  us  by  the  creator  which  impels  us  to 
seek  it  without  rest,  we  find  ourselves  invited  to  a  Barmecide  feast  at 
which  we  sit  at  a  table  sumptuously  spread  with  dishes  and  ceremoni- 
ously go  through  all  the  courses  of  a  stately  repast,  but  get  no  food ;  and 
at  which  we  gladly  sit  through  the  many  courses  in  our  eager  pleasure 
at  seeing  the  covers  successively  removed,  revealing  the  emptiness  of  the 
dishes  beneath  them.  This  miserable  abortion  of  philosophy  is  inevita- 
ble so  long  as  philosophy  disregards  the  real  being  that  we  know,  and 
seeks  for  the  reality  of  being  in  something  deeper  and  more  real  than 
being  itself.  It  is  like  the  folly  of  the  man  who  is  digging  to  find  the 
foundation  of  the  earth  and  declares  that  the  earth  will  never  be  stable 
till  he  discovers  the  tortoise  on  which  it  stands.  Says  F.  H.  Jacobi : 
"  All  our  philosophizing  is  a  striving  to  get  behind  the  forms  of  the 

*  Philosophy  in  the  last  forty  years;  Contemporary  Review,  January,  1880. 

f  Christliche  Glaubenslehre,  g  7  :  2. 

J  De  Subtilitate,  Ex.  CCCVIL  I  21 ;  quoted  Hamilton's  Metaphysics,  Lect.  8. 


PRESENTATIVE   OR  PERCEPTIVE  INTUITION.  1Q9 

thing  to  the  thing  in  itself;  but  how  can  we  do  this,  since  we  must  then 
get  behind  ourselves,  behind  the  entire  nature  of  things,  behind  their 
origin."  *  The  history  of  philosophy  has  demonstrated  over  and  over 
that  every  theory  that  knowledge  begins  as  the  knowledge  of  pheno- 
mena only,  must  issue  in  agnosticism,  and  that  knowledge  can  be  real 
only  if  it  begins  in  the  knowledge  of  being  in  the  perceptive  intuition 
of  self  and  of  outward  things.  And  that  this  knowledge  in  its  begin- 
ning is  the  knowledge  of  being  we  believe,  not  merely  because  it  is 
necessary  to  the  reality  of  knowledge,  although  that  is  a  sufficient 
ground  of  belief,  but  because  this  belief  is  demanded  and  the  contrary 
invalidated  alike  by  consciousness,  common  sense  and  reason.  Aristotle 
says :  "  The  mind  knows  itself  in  the  apprehension  of  the  object  known ; 
for  the  mind  becomes  known  to  itself  in  perceiving  and  knowing."  "  It 
is  itself  known  as  an  object  of  knowledge."  f  Augustine  says :  "  The 

mind  knows  itself But  nothing  is  rightly  said  to  be  while  its 

substance  is  not  known.  Therefore  when  the  mind  knows  itself,  it 
knows  its  own  substance."  J  Even  Hegel,  suggested  the  possibility  that 
if  we  could  penetrate  behind  the  scene  which  is  open  before  us,  we 
should  find  nothing  there.  I  would  suggest  as  a  more  correct  illustra- 
tion, that  if  a  person  looking  through  a  window  mistakes  the  landscape 
which  he  sees  for  a  picture  painted  on  the  glass,  if  the  window  is  opened 
that  he  may  see  the  reality,  he  will  find,  not  "  nothing,"  but  just  what 
he  was  seeing  before.  By  advancing  the  eye  beyond  the  window  a 
wider  view  may  be  obtained,  but  including  not  obliterating  the  first  seen 
landscape.  Of  the  philosophers  who  fall  into  agnosticism  through  this 
delusion  I  may  say,  in  the  words  of  Leibnitz ;  "  They  seek  for  that 
which  they  know,  and  know  not  that  which  they  seek." 

I  21.  The  Relativity  of  Knowledge. 

The  knowledge  of  ourselves  and  our  environment  in  presentative 
intuition  precludes  all  objection  to  the  reality  of  knowledge  on  the 
ground  of  its  relativity. 

I.  In  considering  this  objection  it  is  necessary  in  the  outset  to  fix  the 
meaning  of  the  phrase  "  relativity  of  knowledge."  It  is  continually 
assumed  by  skeptics  that  all  human  knowledge  is  relative  and  there- 
fore unreal ;  but  the  phrase  is  used  with  little  discrimination  in  different 
meanings,  and  the  same  writer  often  fluctuates  in  seeming  unconscious- 
ness from  one  to  another. 

The  objection  may    be  presented  in  the  form  that    knowledge  is 

*  Ueber  das  Unternehmen  des  Kriticismus  &c.  Werke,  Vol.  III.  pp.  176,  177. 
f  Metaph.  XII.  7.  De  Anima  III.  4. 
I  De  Trinitate,  Eook  X.  §  16. 


HO  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

unreal  because  it  is  knowledge  only  of  relations.  Mr.  Murphy  in  his 
"  Scientific  Bases  of  Faith,"  *  states  it  in  this  form.  But  in  this  form 
it  is  meaningless,  because  a  relation  has  no  reality  except  as  a  relation 
between  one  object  and  another.  Knowledge  of  a  relation  must  be 
knowledge  of  the  objects  related.  To  speak  of  knoAving  a  relation  only, 
is  to  use  w^ords  without  meaning. 

The  objection  may  be  presented  in  the  form  that  wre  have  knowledge 
only  of  beings  in  relation.  But  this  affirms  the  knowledge  of  beings ; 
and  we  know  them  in  relation  simply  because  they  are  in  relation. 
We  know  not  only  the  beings  but  also  their  relations.  The  objection 
would  be  like  this :  We  know  a  husband  only  as  related  to  his  wife,  and 
a  wife  only  as  related  to  her  husband ;  therefore  our  knowledge  of  hus- 
band and  wife  is  unreal ;  no  real  husband  and  wife  exists ;  nothing 
exists  but  the  subjective  idea  of  the  relation  denoted  by  the  word  mar- 
riage. But  it  is  obvious  that  marriage  is  without  meaning  except  as 
we  think  of  a  man  and  a  woman  united  in  that  relation.  The  man 
does  not  cease  to  be  a  man  when  he  becomes  a  husband,  nor  the  wroman 
cease  to  be  a  woman  when  she  becomes  a  wife.  We  know  the  two 
beings  and  the  relation  which  they  sustain  to  each  other.  This  exem- 
plifies the  impotence  of  the  objection  in  this  form.  A  being  does  not 
cease  to  exist  when  it  comes  into  relation  with  another  being. 

The  objection  reappears  in  a  third  form :  Knowledge  is  relative  to 
the  faculties  of  the  individual  knowing.  The  object  appears  so  to  him ; 
but  because  the  appearance  is  given  him  through  his  own  faculties,  he 
has  no  guaranty  that  the  object  is  in  itself  or  appears  to  others  the  same 
as  it  appears  to  him.  Lord  Bacon  compares  the  human  faculties  to  a 
corrugated  mirror  in  which  objects  are  seen,  not  as  they  are,  but  dis- 
torted. Others  compare  the  mind  to  a  vase  which  gives  its  own  shape 
to  the  water  poured  into  it.  Others  say  that  we  know  through  our 
faculties  as  \ve  see  through  a  kaleidoscope,  in  which  bits  of  colored  glass 
are  seen  as  regular  and  beautiful  figures  in  innumerable  forms.  That 
light,  heat,  sound  and  the  so-called 'secondary  properties  of  matter  are 
not  in  our  sensation  what  they  are  in  the  outward  body  has  long  been 
familiar.  Successive  generations  of  children  have  puzzled  themselves 
over  the  teaching  that  there  is  no  heat  in  fire.  Prof.  Helmholz,  in  his 
Popular  Lectures  on  Scientific  Subjects,  has  discussed  at  length  the 
theory  of  vision,  with  the  apparent  conclusion  that  it  points  inevitably 
to  unlimited  skepticism.  J.  S.  Mill  extends  the  argument  to  the  pri- 
mary properties  of  matter.  The  resistance  of  solid  matter,  its  attraction 
and  repulsion  are  only  an  anthropomorphic  transference  to  the  outward 
body  of  our  own  resistance,  our  own  pull  and  push.  Many  insist  that 

*Chap.  viii.  p.  125. 


PRESEXTATIVE  OR  PERCEPTIVE  INTUITION.  HI 

while  rational  intuitions  are  indeed  regulative  of  our  own  thinking,  it  is 
only  by  an  illusion  that  we  conceive  of  them  as  regulative  of  aught  be- 
yond our  own  minds.  ^Noire  announces  the  somewhat  amusing  propo- 
sition that  man's  knowledge  of  himself  in  his  own  mental  acts  as  a  per- 
sonal being  is  wholly  anthropomorphic  and  illusive.*  The  same  theory 
of  the  illusiveness  of  knowledge  on  account  of  its  relativity  is  the  basis 
of  Kant's  doctrine  of  the  "  thing  in  itself,"  by  which,  however,  he  does 
not  save  the  reality  of  knowledge. 

II.  To  the  objection  in  this  third  form  I  make  the  following  an- 
swers. 

1.  It  has  been  already  completely  answered  by  showing  that  in  pre- 
sentative  intuition  man  has  knowledge  of  himself  and  of  outward  things, 
and  in  the  refutation  of  Kant's  theory  of  the  thing  in  itself.     I  will  add 
the  following  thoughts. 

2.  The  statement  of  the  objection  always  implies  a  knowledge  of  true 
reality  and  a  power  of  comparing  it  with  our  own  impressions. 

Even  in  the  objector's  comparisons  the  knowledge  of  the  true  reality 
is  implied.  If  the  intellectual  faculties  are  a  kaleidoscope,  what  is  it 
that  looks  through  it  and  by  what  power  does  this  observer  discriminate 
between  the  illusions  of  the  reflected  light  and  the  bits  of  glass  which 
are  the  true  reality  ?  If  these  faculties  are  a  mirror,  what  is  it  that  sees 
itself  in  the  mirror  and  by  what  power  does  the  seer  knowr  that  the  mir- 
ror is  corrugated  and  untrustworthy  ?  So  in  our  knowledge  of  the  sensa- 
tions of  seeing  and  hearing,  we  discriminate  the  sensations  from  the  out- 
ward reality  to  which  they  correspond,  we  ascertain  that  the  outward 
reality  which  occasions  sound  consists  of  undulations  of  air  and  that 
which  occasions  sight  consists  of  vibrations  of  an  aether ;  we  ascertain 
that  shrill  sounds  correspond  to  rapid  vibrations  and  grave  sounds  to 
slow  vibrations ;  that  harmonious  sounds  represent  undulations  of  defi- 
nite order  while  discords  represent  clashing  waves ;  that  colors  represent 
vibrations  of  different  rapidity;  that  the  rapidity  of  the  vibrations  is 
estimated  and  expressed  in  numbers,  and  thus  the  eye  presents  differ- 
ences in  motion  so  minute  that,  though  thinkable  when  expressed  in 
figures,  they  are  inconceivable  in  imagination.  We  also  ascertain  that 
the  sensations  are  realities  of  consciousness;  that  they  cannot  be  re- 
solved into  modes  of  motion  nor  explained  by  the  correlation  of  forces ; 
that  though  correspondent  with  the  undulations  and  vibrations  they 
cannot  be  identified  with  them  in  thought  but  remain,  distinct  in  kind, 
realities  of  consciousness.  Thus  the  science  of  vision  and  hearing  im- 
plies at  every  step  knowledge  of  true  reality  and  the  power  of  comparing 
it  with  our  sensations. 

*  Die  welt  als  Entwickelung  des  Geistes ;  pp.  55,  61. 


112  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

The  same  is  true  of  all  phenomenalism.  It  is  said,  "  We  know  only 
phenomena."  But  what  is  it  that  knows  the  phenomenon  and  discrim- 
inates it  from  the  true  reality  ?  Can  one  phenomenon  know  another, 
and  discriminate  the  other  from  itself  and  both  from  true  reality? 
Prof.  John  Fiske  in  his  Cosmic  Philosophy  affirms  that  what  we  call 
reality  is  the  inevitable  persistence  of  a  fact  of  consciousness ;  that  when 
the  unknown  objective  order  of  things  produces  in  us  a  subjective  order 
of  conceptions  which  persists  in  spite  of  every  effort  to  change  it,  the 
subjective  order  is  in  every  respect  as  real  to  us  as  the  objective  order 
would  be  if  we  could  know  it.  He  thinks  that  this  is  all  the  assurance 
which  we  need  as  a  warrant  for  science  and  a  rebutting  of  skepticism  ; 
and  that  we  lose  nothing  in  being  unable  to  transcend  the  limits  within 
which  alone  knowledge  is  possible.  But  his  whole  argument  assumes  a 
knowledge  of  the  unknown  objective  order,  of  the  fact  that  it  produces 
or  at  least  always  corresponds  with  the  subjective  order,  that  the  human 
mind  has  a  power  transcending  the  two  orders,  whereby  it  compares 
them  and  concludes  that  it  has  true  scientific  knowledge,  whereby  also 
it  is  able  to  judge  that  intellectual  power  transcending  this  would  give 
us  no  more  real  knowledge. 

In  attempting  to  maintain  the  general  theory  of  the  relativity  of  all 
knowledge,  the  knowledge  of  true  reality  is  assumed,  and  even  the 
knowledge  of  the  Absolute  is  implied  as  the  ultimate  datum  of  the  rea- 
soning. This  Mr.  Spencer  claihis  to  have  proved  in  his  "  First  Princi- 
ples ; "  he  also  says,  "  The  existence  of  a  non-relative  is  unavoidably 
asserted  in  every  chain  of  reasoning  by  which  relativity  is  proved."  * 

3.  The  objection  involves  self-contradiction  and  absurdity. 

It  is  the  first  law  of  thought  that  knowledge  implies  a  subject  know- 
ing, an  object  known,  and  the  knowledge  as  a  relation  between  them. 
The  objection  is  that  because  this  is  so,  the  so-called  knowledge  is  not 
knowledge  but  an  illusion. 

In  asserting  that  knowledge  is  unreal  because  it  is  relative  to  the 
faculties  of  the  mind  knowing,  the  objection  asserts  the  absurdity  that 
knowledge  is  impossible  because  there  is  a  mind  that  knows.  And  it  is 
equally  valid  against  any  mind,  since  any  mind  which  has  knowledge 
must  have  it  through  its  own  power  of  knowing.  This  is  simply  saying 
that  an  intelligent  being  is  unthinkable ;  that  the  idea  of  an  intelligent 
being  involves  absurdity  in  its  very  essence. 

On  the  other  hand  it  implies  that  no  reality  exists  which  is  knowable 
or  thinkable.  Whatever  can  be  conceived,  or  thought,  or  known  by  a 
mind  is  thereby  proved  not  to  be  reality.  Whereas  in  fact  reality  can- 
not be  conceived  or  thought  of,  except  as  cognizable  by  some  mind. 

*  Psychology,  Vol.  I.,  p.  209. 


PRESENT ATIVE  OB  PERCEPTIVE  INTUITION.  H3 

The  objector  supposes  that  we  think  of  reality  which  is  unthinkable  and 
compare  it  with  phenomena  which  are  thinkable. 

The  objection  further  assumes  that  it  is  essential  to  the  reality  of  a 
person's  knowledge  that  he  prove  that  things  appear  to  all  other  per- 
sons, God,  angels  and  men,  precisely  as  they  do  to  himself.  But  this 
is  impossible,  for  it  requires  that  the  person  not  only  have  knowledge 
within  his  own  consciousness,  but  also  that  he  gather  the  consciousness 
of  all  other  beings  into  his  own.  Besides,  should  the  consciousness  of 
others  be  revealed  to  this  person,  he  could  know  it  only  through  his 
own  faculties,  and  therefore  would  attain  only  illusion,  not  real  know- 
ledge ;  nor  would  any  communication  with  other  men  be  possible. 

4.  It  is  evident,  then,  that  this  theory  of  the  relativity  of  know- 
ledge issues  in  complete  agnosticism.  There  would  be  no  knowledge  of 
the  secondary  properties  of  matter ;  and  equally  there  would  be  no 
knowledge  of  its  primary  properties,  nor  of  motion,  nor  of  the  correla- 
tion of  forces,  nor  of  one's  own  existence,  nor  of  any  reality  whatever. 

"Thy  hand,  great  Anarch,  lets  the  curtain  fall, 
And  universal  darkness  buries  all." 

All,  then,  that  the  objection  can  establish  is,  that  our  knowledge, 
because  our  minds  are  finite,  is  limited,  not  that  it  is  unreal.  Other 
beings  no  doubt  know  objects  of  which  we  at  present  have  no  concep- 
tion ;  and  Voltaire's  Micromegas  from  the  planet  Jupiter  with  his 
multitudinous  senses  is  still  a  possible  conception ;  and  the  existence  of 
such  a  being  would  be  no  objection  against  the  reality  of  human  know- 
ledge. 

I  come  back,  therefore,  to  the  principles  established  in  Chapter  II. 
Knowledge  is  known  in  its  own  self-evidence.  Its  reality  does  not 
depend  on  proof  by  argument  and  can  never  be  invalidated  by  ob- 
jections. 


UNIVERSITY 


CHAPTER    V. 


WHAT  IS  KNOWN  THEOUGH  RATIONAL  INTUITION 


§22.  Universal  Principles,  not  Particular  Realities. 

IN  the  intuition  of  reason  we  have  immediate  and  self-evident  know- 
ledge of  universal  and  necessary  principles.  Our  consciousness  is  not 
merely  that  they  are  true,  but  that  they  must  be  true.  Thought  cannot 
transcend  them  but  must  be  regulated  by  them.  When  apprehended 
in  reflection  they  present  themselves  as  judgments  and  may  be  formu- 
lated in  propositions.  The  knowledge  of  particular  realities  is  given  in 
sense-perception  and  self-consciousness.  Rational  intuition  does  not 
give  knowledge  of  these  realities,  but  only  of  principles  always  and 
everywhere  true  of  these  realities.  It  does  not  give  the  knowledge 
of  being,  but  only  principles  true  of  all  beings ;  for  example,  every 
quality  is  the  quality  of  some  being.  It  does  not  give  the  knowledge 
of  power  and  cause,  but  it  gives  the  principle  that  every  beginning  or 
change  of  existence  must  be  the  effect  of  a  causa.  In  the  idea  of  abso- 
lute being,  rational  intuition  does  not  give  the  knowledge  of  being,  for 
that  we  know  in  knowing  ourselves ;  but  it  gives  us  the  principle  that 
uncaused,  absolute  being  must  exist.  It  does  not  give  the  knowledge  of 
extension  in  its  three  dimensions,  but  it  gives  the  axioms  of  geometry 
and  the  metaphysical  principles  that  place,  considered  abstractly 
from  the  body  occupying  it,  must  be  continuous,  immovable  and  un- 
limited. It  does  not  give  the  knowledge  of  personal  being,  but  gives 
us  principles  true  of  all  persons ;  the  principles  of  ethics,  as  that  a 
rational  being  ought  to  obey  reason ;  the  principles  of  logic,  as  the 
principle  of  non-contradiction,  "  The  same  thing  cannot  be  and  not  be 
at  the  same  time,"  which  Aristotle  says  is  the  most  fundamental  of  all 
first  principles.  *  Thus  all  rational  intuitions  are  intuitive  judgments 
which  may  be  formulated  in  propositions.  Lotze  calls  them  Grund- 
sdtze,  fundamental  maxims  or  principles,  and  thus  distinguishes  them 
from  Grundbegriffe,  fundamental  ideas.  These  principles  are  the  un- 
changing and  universal  forms  in  which  Reason  recognizes  the  particular 
realities  known  in  sense-perception  and  self-consciousness.  Because  it 

*  Metaphysics,  III.  3.     Haa&v 

114 


WHAT  IS  KNOWN  THROUGH  RATIONAL  INTUITION.         H5 

is  reason  it  cannot  recognize  them  otherwise  than  in  the  unchanging 
light  of  reason  and  as  related  to  and  illuminated  by  its  own  truths, 
laws,  ideals  and  ends.  John  Smith  describes  the  rational  intuition  as 
"  a  naked  intuition  of  eternal  truth  which  never  rises  nor  sets,  but 
always  stands  still  in  its  vertical  and  fills  the  whole  horizon  of  the  soul 
with  a  mild  and  gentle  light."* 

$23.  Rise  and  Development  in  Consciousness. 

I.  Man  is  so  constituted  that,  as  his  reason  is  developed  in  experi- 
ence he  finds  himself  under  the  necessity  of  thinking  according  to 
these  principles  and  incapable  of  thinking  the  contrary.    An  apple-seed 
has  constituent  elements  which  determine  from  within  itself  the  line  of 
its  development,  so  that,  if  it  grows,  it  will  grow  into  an  apple-tree  bear- 
ing blossoms  and  apples.     So  in  the  mind  of  man  these  principles  lie  as 
constituent  elements  which  from  within  the  mind  itself  determine  its 
development  as  a  reason,  and  are  in  the  developed  reason  the  norms  or 
standards  of  all  thought.    Hence  they  have  been  fitly  named  by  Dugald 
Stewart,  "  constituent  elements  of  reason,"  and  by  Hamilton,  "  primary 
elements  of  reason."      So  Lotze  says,  they  "  are  at  bottom  only  the 
peculiar  constitution  of  the  reason  itself  expressed  in  the  form  of  funda- 
mental laws  which  regulate  its  action."  f    They  are  not,  therefore,  ideas 
and  judgments  of  which  we  are  conscious  before  all  experience,  but 
simply  constitutional  norms  of  thought  which  are  developed  in  experi- 
ence into  standards  of  rational  judgment  by  which  it  is  possible  to 
distinguish  the  true  from  the  false  and  without  which  the  very  idea  of 
a  rational  being  is  impossible.    The  mind  brings  nothing  with  it  but  its 
own  constitution,  but  that  is  a  constitution  endowed  with  the  elements 
of  rationality 

II.  A  first   principle  of  reason   appears   in  consciousness  only  on 
occasion  of  some  experienca  requiring  its  application.     I  must  observe 
motion  or  change  before  I  inquire  what  is  its  cause.     But,  as  Coleridge 
says,  "  Though  these  principles  are  first  revealed  to  us  by  experience, 
they  must  yet  have  pre-existed  in  order  to  make  experience  itself  pos- 
sible, even  as  the  eye  must  exist  previously  to  any  particular  act  of 
seeing,  though  by  sight  alone  can  we  know  that  we  have  eyes."     It  is 
only  in  experience  that  we  become  aware  of  those  principles  of  reason 
which  condition  all  experience. 

III.  These  principles  regulate  thinking  and  action  before  they  are 
recognized  or  enunciated  in  reflective  thought.      A  savage,  if  asked 
whether  two  straight  lines  can  inclose  a  space,  or  whether  there  can  be 
beginning  or  change  of  existence  without  a  cause,  may  declare  his  total 

*  Select  Discourses,  2d  Ed.     Cambridge,  1673,  pp.  91,  92. 
f  Mikroskosmus,  Vol.  III.  B.  IX.  chap.  iv.  pp.  547,  548. 


116  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

ignorance  on  the  subject.  Yet  the  same  savage  will  not  attempt  to  in- 
close a  piece  of  ground  for  a  hut  with  two  straight  poles,  and  if  shot 
with  an  arrow  will  know  that  some  one  shot  it.  In  this  respect  rational 
intuition  is  analogous  to  presentative  intuition.  Children  and  savages 
smell,  taste,  hear,  see  and  feel  and  are  practically  guided  by  their  per- 
ceptions before  they  attain  in  reflection  the  abstract  idea  of  sensation 
or  attempt  to  define  and  formulate  it.  They  know  their  own  existence 
before  they  attain  the  idea  of  the  Ego.  And  always  primitive  unelab- 
orated  knowledge  precedes  knowledge  elaborated  in  thought.  Lotze 
illustrates  the  rational  intuition  latent  in  the  constitution  by  comparing 
it  to  the  spark  in  the  flint.  "  As  little  as  the  spark  shines  as  a  spark  in 
the  flint  before  the  steel  strikes  it,  so  little  are  the  first  principles  of 
reason  in  the  consciousness  before  all  impressions  in  experience  which 
are  the  occasion  of  their  arising  ....  They  are  born  in  us  in  no 
other  sense  than  that  in  the  original  constitution  of  the  spirit  is  a  trait 
which  obliges  it,  under  the  excitement  of  experience,  to  build  up  these 
ways  of  knowing."  *  So  Lichtenberg  says :  "  The  peasant  employs  all 
the  principles  of  abstract  philosophy,  only  enveloped,  latent  ;  the 
philosopher  exhibits  the  pure  principle."  f  D'  Alembert  expresses  the 
opinion  that  metaphysics  cannot  teach  anything  that  is  new,  but  can 
only  bring  into  clearer  consciousness  and  present  in  the  order  of  a 
system  what  every  body  knew  before.  Canon  Kingsley  says  that  what 
is  needed  to  confound  people's  skepticism  in  philosophy  and  theology 
is  "  only  to  bring  them  to  look  their  own  reason  in  the  face,  and  to  tell 
them  boldly,  you  know  these  things  at  heart  already,  if  you  will  only 
look  at  what  you  know  and  clear  from  your  own  spirits  the  mists  which 
your  mere  brain  has  wrapped  around  them."  J  Even  before  they  are 
recognized  and  formulated  they 

"  Are  yet  the  fountain  light  of  all  our  day, 
Are  yet  a  master  light  of  all  our  seeing." 

Once  recognized  they  are 

"  truths  that  wake 
To  perish  never." 

IV.  The  argument  against  "innate  ideas"  as  presented  by  Locke 
has  no  relevancy  to  the  real  doctrine  of  rational  intuitions.  Descartes 
explains  that  the  ideas  are  natural  in  the  sense  that  they  do  not  origi- 
nate from  without  but  in  the  faculty  of  intelligence  itself ;  and  they  are 
naturally  in  the  intellect,  not  in  act  but  only  potentially;  as  we  say 
that  generosity  is  natural  to  some  families,  and  certain  diseases,  to 

*Mikrokosmus:  B.  ii.  chap.  4,  Vol.  i.,  p.  247,  248. 
fHinterlassene  Schriften,  Vol.  ii.,  p.  67. 
i  Biography,  p.  190. 


WHAT  IS  KNOWN  THROUGH  RATIONAL  INTUITION.         H7 

others ;  not  that  the  children  suffer  from  the  hereditary  disease  at  or 
even  before  birth,  "  but  only  that  they  are  born  with  the  faculty  or 
predisposition  to  contract  it."  *  Leibnitz  in  his  "  Critique "  of  Locke 
explains  that  the  mind  is  full  of  characters  which  the  sense  reveals  but 
does  not  imprint,  and  compares  it  to  a  sculptor  finding  in  a  block  of 
marble  which  he  is  chiseling  veins  tracing  a  Hercules.  Prof.  Sedge- 
wick  illustrates  it  by  comparing  the  mind  to  a  paper  written  with 
invisible  ink :  "  As  for  knowledge  his  soul  is  one  unvaried  blank  ;  yet 
this  blank  has  already  been  touched  by  a  celestial  hand,  and  when 
plunged  in  the  colors  that  surround  it,  takes  not  its  tinge  from  accident 
but  design  and  comes  forth  colored  with  a  glorious  pattern."  f  Ra- 
tional intuitions  are  innate  only  in  the  sense  that  they  are  constituent 
elements  of  reason  ;  that,  as  man  becomes  conscious  of  himself  in 
experience,  he  finds  himself  a  rational  being  endowed  with  norms  and 
in  possession  of  principles  of  reason  regulating  all  his  thinking,  and 
constituting  him  able  to  discriminate  between  the  true  and  the  false, 
and  to  infer  the  unknown  from  the  known.  And  this,  rationalistic 
philosophers  since  Descartes,  with  more  or  less  clearness,  have  appre- 
hended and  explained.  Locke's  argument  against  innate  ideas  was, 
even  in  his  day,  a  striking  example  of  ignoratio  elenchi,  or  philosophical 
kicking  at  nothing ;  yet  it  has  held  and  still  holds  its  place  with 
skeptics,  as  if  the  doctrine  which  it  controverts  were  iieally  believed  by 
somebody  and  its  refutation  would  prove  that  there  is  no  God.  A 
remarkable  example  is  the  chapter  on  "  Innate  Ideas  "  in  Dr.  Buchner's 
"Kraft  und  Stoff."  Among  the  inane  objections  which  Descartes 
ridicules  J  is  this,  that  infants  cannot  have  knowledge  and  ideas  in  the 
fcetal  condition  before  birth.  Yet  Dr.  Biichner  gravely  urges  this  very 
objection,  as  if  this  trumpery  were  believed.  The  principles  and  doc- 
trines which  Dr.  Biichner  controverts  in  this  chapter  are  not  to  be 
found  in  modern  philosophy  or  theology 

g  24.    Significance  as  Regulative  Principles. 

I.  Rational  Intuitions  are  void  of  significance  except  as  applied  to 
beings  and  their  attributes,  conditions  and  relations  known  in  percep- 
tive intuition.  From  mere  a  priori  principles  nothing  can  be  deduced. 
The  principle  that  every  beginning  or  change  has  a  cause,  is  void  of 
content  until  I  perceive  some  being  in  the  exercise  of  power.  Then 
this  principle  extends  the  causal  power  back  to  the  eternal.  Principles 
known  in  rational  intuition  may  be  compared  to  the  sides,  and  realities 
known  in  perceptive  intuition  to  the  rounds  of  a  ladder.  The  sides 

*Oeuvres  de  Descartes:  Cousin's  Ed.,  Vol.  x.,  pp.  94,  98,  99. 
fOn  the  Studies  of  the  University,  p.  54. 
J  Vol.  x.,  p.  107. 


118  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

lying  by  themselves  are  useless  for  the  purposes  of  a  ladder,  and  so  are 
the  rounds.  But  when  the  rounds  are  inserted  in  the  sides  we  have  a 
ladder  by  which  we  can  scale  the  heavens.  If  the  reason  is  winged 
with  intuitions,  empirical  reality  is  the  atmosphere  without  which  it 
cannot  soar.  Schopenhauer  says,  "In  proportion  as  any  cognition  is 
necessary,  in  proportion  as  it  brings  with  it  what  we  must  think  and 
cannot  think  otherwise,  it  has  less  reality ;  and  in  proportion  as  it  in- 
cludes empirical  accidental  varieties,  it  has  more  reality — more  of  what 
stands  on  its  own  basis  and  cannot  be  deduced  from  another."  *  This 
is  no  invalidation  of  rational  intuition  ;  for  it  is  an  obscure  recognition 
and  an  inadequate  and  misleading  enunciation  of  the  connection  of 
rational  intuition  with  empirical  reality  which  I  am  affirming.  The 
representation  of  rational  intuition  in  Browning's  Paracelsus  is  a 
caricature  of  the  doctrine,  though  some  Mystics  have  held  something 
like  it : 

"  There  is  an  inmost  center  in  us  all 

Where  truth  abides  in  fulness :  and  to  know 

Kather  consists  in  opening  out  a  way 

Whence  the  imprisoned  splendor  may  escape, 

Than  in  effecting  entrance  for  a  light 

Supposed  to  be  without." 

We  have  seen,  on  the  contrary,  that  the  rational  intuitions  exist 
primarily,  not  as\  formulated  truths,  but  as  constitutional  norms,  that 
they  appear  in  consciousness  only  on  occasion  in  experience  and  have 
content  and  significance  only  as  applied  to  empirically  known  reality. 
While  the  impact  of  the  outward  is  necessary  to  unlock  "  the  im- 
prisoned splendor,"  it  is  equally  necessary  that  the  unlocked  splendor 
go  out  upon  the  outward  or  be  reflected  on  us  from  it,  if  it  is  to 
enlighten  us  with  knowledge.  And  as  the  splendor  unlocked  from  its 
prison  in  a  lump  of  coal  had  its  origin  in  the  sun,  human  reason  can 
become  luminous  with  intelligence  only  because  it  is  itself  the  creature 
and  likeness  of  the  reason  supreme  and  absolute  in  God. 

II.  Kational  intuition  does  not  guarantee  the  correctness  and  com- 
pleteness of  our  observation  of  facts  and  our  reflective  judgments 
respecting  them.  Rational  intuition  gives  the  knowledge  that  two  par- 
allel straight  lines  can  never  meet ;  but  it  gives  no  information  on  the 
question  whether  two  given  lines  are  parallel  and  straight.  Perhaps 
the  most  common  and  effective  objection  against  the  validity  of  rational 
intuitions  is  the  fact  that  the  Ancients  regarded  the  existence  of  anti- 
podes as  absurd.  But  the  ancients  in  this  case  applied  the  principle  oi 
causation  correctly  to  what  they,  in  their  ignorance  of  gravitation  and 
the  sphericity  of  the  earth,  supposed  to  be  the  facts.  According  to 

*Die  Welt  als  Wille  und  Vorstellung,  i.,  145. 


WHAT  IS  KNOWN  THROUGH  RATIONAL  INTUITION.         H9 

their  view  of  the  facts  the  existence  of  people  at  the  antipodes  would  be 
impossible,  because  it  would  be  an  effect  without  a  cause.  The  principle 
remains  true  and  the  conclusion  necessary  from  it  is  correct.  The  mis- 
take is  as  to  the  facts.  The  objection  derives  all  its  force  from  the 
misrepresentation  that  rational  intuition  gives  a  knowledge  of  the  facts, 
which  no  intelligent  person  affirms.  Such  a  rational  intuition  would 
approximate  closely  to  omniscience. 

Prof.  Helmholz  attempts  to  invalidate  rational  intuition  by  suppos- 
ing intelligent  beings  living  on  a  solid  sphere,  but  capable  of  perceiving 
only  what  is  on  its  surface.  They  would  know  space  only  in  two 
dimensions.  To  them  a  line  curving  with  the  earth's  surface  would  be 
a  straight  line.  Therefore  the  axioms  that  a  straight  line  is  the  shortest 
distance  between  two  points,  and  that  between  two  points  only  one 
straight  line  can  be  drawn,  would  no  longer  be  true.  This  sounds  ex- 
ceedingly learned  and  profound ;  but  it  is  merely  the  childish  objection 
that  if  some  persons  should  mistake  a  curved  line  for  a  straight  one,  the 
axioms  of  geometry  would  no  longer  be  true.  If  we  are  to  reason  from 
fancies  like  this  it  is  as  easy  to  prove  one  thing  as  another,  and  com- 
plete agnosticism  is  the  necessary  result.  It  is  idle  to  inquire  how 
things  would  appear  to  beings  that  would  know  themselves  and  all 
bodies  merely  as  mathematical  surfaces,  having  length  and  breadth 
without  thickness. 

III.  These  principles  are  regulative,  that  is  they  determine  the  pos- 
sible and  the  impossible.  I  do  not  mean  what  is  possible  or  impossible 
to  a  particular  finite  being;  for  that  would  be  determined  by  the 
degree  at  which  its  power  is  limited.  I  mean  what  is  possible  or  impos- 
sible to  any  and  all  power. 

1.  These  principles  are  regulative  of  intellectual  power ;  they  deter- 
mine wrhat  is  possible  and  wThat  impossible  to  thought.     All  thinking  is 
regulated  by  them ;  for  it  is  impossible  to  think  the  contrary  of  them 
to  be  true ;  all  reasoning  depends  on  them,  and  without  them  cannot 
conclude  in  an  inference.     Attempting  to  pass  beyond  them  the  intel- 
lect drops  helpless  in  vacuity  and  fatuity.    They  are  the  primitive  prin- 
ciples and  constituent  elements  of  rationality  itself;  to  reject  them  is  to 
strip  rationality  from  the  reason  and  to  extinguish  reason  in  unreason. 

2.  These  principles  determine  what  is  possible  to  will-power.     They 
,  are  laws  of  things  as  well  as  of  thought.     The  absurd  cannot  be  real. 

It  is  impossible  to  think  that  two  contradictories  coexist  in  the  same 
place  and  time.  It  is  equally  impossible  for  them  to  coexist.  No  will- 
power can  cause  them  to  coexist.  If  we  suppose  will-power  annulling 
the  law  of  causation  and  producing  a  change  that  is  uncaused,  the 
thought  nullifies  itself  in  the  attempt  to  think  it ;  for  it  is  an  attempt 
to  think  of  an  effect  which  is  not  an  effect.  It  is  equally  true  of  all 


120  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

other  first  principles  of  reason.  No  power  of  will  can  create,  annul  or 
change  a  single  principle  of  reason  or  give  reality  to  what  contradicts 
it.  Will  cannot  alter  the  sphere  of  reason.  Power,  even  though 
almighty,  is  powerless  upon  truth.  Will,  even  though  almighty,  cannot 
eliminate  the  Must  be  and  the  Ought  to  be  from  the  universe. 

3.  These  principles  determine  what  is  possible  in  nature.  Physical 
science  is  the  discovery  in  nature  of  the  principles  and  laws  of  Keason 
pervading  and  regulating  nature.  If  these  principles  had  been  in  the 
reason  of  man,  but  not  in  nature,  man  could  never  have  put  them  into 
nature,  nor  have  caused  nature  to  be  regulated  by  them.  If  they  had 
been  in  nature  and  not  in  the  reason  of  man,  man  never  could  have 
discovered  them  nor  formed  any  conception  of  them.  And  this  is  only 
recognizing  from  a  new  point  of  view  the  synthesis  of  phenomenon  and 
noumenon,  which,  in  contrast  to  Kant's  antithesis  of  them,  I  have 
already  shown  to  be  essential  to  all  rational  intelligence.  An  intelligible 
object  is  impossible  without  an  intelligent  subject.  The  noumena  or 
necessary  principles  and  ideas  of  Reason  are  the  unchanging  forms  in 
which  reality  is  known  by  rational  intelligence.  If  all  that  is  known 
by  man  is  phenomenal  and  not  the  real  being,  because  known  in  rela- 
tion to  his  mind,  and  the  noumenon  or  real  being  is  out  of  this  relation 
and  unknowable  by  man,  then  all  that  is  known  by  any  mind  is  phe- 
nomenal and  unreal  because  known  in  relation  to  that  mind.  Thus  we 
have  the  monstrous  absurdity  that  noumena  exist  as  pure  objects  out 
of  all  relation  to  all  and  every  intelligent  mind,  that  is,  pure  objects 
unintelligible  to  any  mind  and  contrary  to  any  and  every  principle  of 
reason.  The  existence  of  such  an  object  is  impossible.  And  this  im- 
possibility is  affirmed  in  the  proposition  that  the  principles  of  reason 
are  laws  of  things  as  well  as  of  thought  ;•  that  through  the  reason  the 
phenomenon  is  in  synthesis  with  the  noumenon.  The  absurd  cannot  be 
real.  A  reality  contradictory  to  reason  would  be  equally  contrary  to 
itself.  Man's  knowledge  is  limited.  Realities  may  exist  beyond  the 
range  of  human  observation  and  transcending  human  reason.  But  in 
the  farthest  range  of  possibility  beyond  the  limits  of  human  knowledge, 
nothing  can  exist  which  contradicts  human  reason,  and  is  thus  in  its 
nature  unintelligible  and  out  of  relation  to  any  and  all  rational  intelli- 
gence. "  Nunquam  aliud  natura,  aliud  sapientia  dicit."  * 

When  we  say  that  the  objects  of  sense-perception  and  self-conscious- 
ness are  known  in  the  forms  of  the  principles  of  Reason,  in  other  words, 
when  \ve  say  that  these  principles  are  regulative  of  things  as  well  as  of 
thought,  we  simply  affirm  that  these  realities  are  known  as  existing  in  a 
system  of  things  accordant  with  the  universal  truths  of  Reason.  It  is 

*  Juvenal,  Sat.  14,  321. 


WHAT  IS   KNOWN  THROUGH   RATIONAL  INTUITION.         121 

often  objected  that  we  have  no  real  knowledge  of  the  objects  of  presen- 
tativc  intuition  because  we  know  them  only  in  relation  to  one  another. 
But  they  are  known  thus,  because  they  exist  thus.  We  find  them  in  a 
rational  system  because  they  exist  in  a  rational  system.  The  denial 
that  rational  principles  are  regulative  of  these  realities  is  the  denial  that 
the  realities  exist  in  a  rational  system ;  and  this  of  course  is  the  denial 
of  the  possibility  of  natural  science,  for  natural  science  is  the  knowledge 
of  nature  as  a  system  accordant  with  reason.  Then  it  would  follow  that 
the  universe  is  not  grounded  in  reason  and  its  constitution  and  on- 
going are  not  accordant  with  rational  truths  and  laws.  Then  there 
would  be  no  difference  between  the  reasonable  and  the  absurd ;  two  and 
two  might  make  five ;  two  straight  lines  might  inclose  a  space ;  contra- 
dictions might  be  necessary  and  universal  truths;  the  supreme  law 
might  be,  "  Thou  shalt  love  thyself  with  all  thy  heart,  and  thyself  only 
shalt  thou  serve ; "  and  all  these  absurdities  might  be  real  to-day  and 
their  contraries  real  to-morrow,  and  the  past  might  become  future,  and 
virtue  be  sold  at  a  dollar  a  pound.  And  this  is  only  saying  that  all 
basis  of  intelligence  would  disappear,  the  description  of  the  universe 
would  be  nonsense  and  not  science,  and  unreason  would  be  supreme. 
The  human  mind  must  peremptorily  reject  such  nonsense  or  sink  into 
idiocy.  It  necessarily  rejects  it  only  because  the  rational  intuitions  are 
the  constituent  elements  of  reason,  and  regulate  all  thought.  And  it  is 
only  because  the  constitution  of  the  universe  is  accordant  with  these 
principles  and  its  ongoing  regulated  by  them,  that  the  universe  is  a 
Cosmos  and  not  a  chaos.  They  are  the  "flammantia  moenia  mundi"* 
the  flaming  bulwarks  of  the  universe,  which  no  power  not  even  though 
almighty  can  break  through  or  destroy,  and  within  which  the  cosmos 
lies  in  the  light  of  rational  truth,  and  moves  in  the  harmony  and  order 
of  rational  law  to  the  realization  of  rational  ideals  and  ends.  Thus  the 
principles  of  reason,  together  with  the  truths  inferred  from  them,  and 
the  ideals  and  ends  determined  by  them,  are  the  archetypes  of  nature. 

g  25.    Validity  of  Rational  Intuition. 

The  possibility  of  philosophy  and  theology  rests  on  the  validity  of 
rational  intuition  as  a  source  of  knowledge.  Its  vindication  is,  there- 
fore, of  prime  importance. 

I  do  not  propose  to  prove  these  principles,  each  of  which  stands  by 
itself,  if  it  stands  at  all,  in  its  own  self-evidence ;  but  only  to  vindicate 
their  validity  against  objections. 

I.  Rational  intuition  is  immediate  self-evident  knowledge,  known  as 
such  in  the  act  of  knowing ;  as  such  it  sustains  all  the  criteria  of  primi- 
tive knowledge.  It  is  no  objection  against  the  principles  thus  known 
*  Lucretius,  De  Rerum  Natura,  I.  73. 


122  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

that  they  rest  only  on  self-evidence  and  cannot  be  proved ;  for  all 
knowledge  must  originate  in  like  manner  as  self-evident  knowledge. 
They,  who  reject  them  because  they  cannot  prove  them,  remind  us  of 
Martin  Luther's  words :  "  When  at  a  window  I  have  gazed  on  the  stars 
and  the  whole  beauty  of  the  vault  of  heaven,  I  have  seen  no  pillars  on 
which  the  builder  had  set  the  vault ;  yet  the  heavens  fell  not,  and  the 
vault  still  stands  firm.  Now  there  are  simple  folk  who  look  about 
for  such  pillars  and  would  fain  feel  and  grasp  them.  But  since  they 
cannot,  they  quake  and  tremble  as  if  the  heavens  would  certainly  fall, 
and  for  no  other  reason  than  because  they  cannot  see  and  grasp  the  pil- 
lars. If  they  could  but  grasp  them,  then,  they  think,  the  heavens  would 
stand  firm  enough."  Truth  rests  on  other  than  material  supports 
which  the  senses  can  grasp,  yet  firm  as  the  intangible  forces  holding 
fast  the  earth  and  the  stars,  which  God  hangeth  on  nothing.  We  may 
well  agree  with  Aristotle  that  they  who  forsake  the  nature  of  things 
or  self-evident  principles  will  not  find  any  surer  basis  on  which  to  build. 
Even  those  who  deny  their  validity  are  compelled  to  rest  their  thinking 
on  them.  Locke,  in  the  very  chapter  in  which  he  is  arguing  against 
innate  ideas,  admits  the  validity  of  rational  intuitions  by  saying :  "  He 
would  be  thought  void  of  common  sense,  who,  asked  on  the  one  side  or 
the  other  side,  went  to  give  a  reason  why  it  is  impossible  for  the  same 
thing  to  be  and  not  to  be.  It  carries  its  own  light  and  evidence  with 
it  and  needs  no  other  proof;  he  that  understands  the  terms  assents  to  it 
for  its  own  sake,  or  else  nothing  will  ever  be  able  to  prevail  on  him  to 
do  it."*  The  same  may  be  said  of  all  the  first  principles  known  in 
rational  intuition.  They  severally  sustain  all  the  tests  or  criteria  of 
primitive  knowledge.  They  are  self-evident.  It  is  impossible  to  think 
the  contrary  as  true.  They  persist  in  the  practical  control  of  thought 
and  action  in  the  face  of  all  speculative  objections  and  denials.  They 
are  consistent  with  each  other  and  with  all  knowledge.  They  are  there- 
fore knowledge.  And  because  primitive  or  intuitive  knowledge  exists 
independent  of  reflective  thought,  it  cannot  be  uprooted  by  it.  "  What 
has  never  been  reasoned  up  can  never  be  reasoned  down." 

II.  These  principles  are  indispensable  in  all  reasoning.  Without 
them  reasoning  could  never  conclude  in  an  inference.  This  has  already 
been  shown.  If  man  is  capable  of  an  inference  from  premises  he  must 
have  rational  norms  for  his  decision ;  if  he  is  capable  of  bringing  any 
investigation  to  a  conclusion  in  knowledge,  he  must  know  universal 
principles  according  to  which  the  connection  and  unity  of  particular 
realities  known  in  presentative  intuition  can  be  determined.  If  he  is 
capable  of  exploring  the  Cosmos  and  bringing  it  within  his  science  he 

*  Essay,  B.  I.  chap.  iii.  §  4. 


WHAT  IS   KNOWN  THROUGH  RATIONAL  INTUITION.         123 

must  have  a  final  standard  of  all  truth.  And  this  is  as  true  of  induc- 
tive reasoning,  on  which  the  physical  sciences  claim  specially  to  rest,  as 
it  is  of  any  other.  And  scientists  acknowledge  this  practically  and 
implicitly,  if  not  theoretically.  Some  writers  whose  theory  of  know- 
ledge leans  to  complete  positivism  use  these  principles  while  re- 
cognizing no  philosophical  basis  for  them.  Prof.  Bain  says  of  the 
principle  of  the  uniformity  of  nature  which  is  at  the  basis  of  all  induc- 
tion, "  Our  only  error  is  in  proposing  to  give  any  reason  or  justification 
of  the  postulate  or  to  treat  it  as  otherwise  than  begged  at  the  very 
outset."  And  Prof.  Helmholz  says  of  it:  "  In  this  case  but  one  course 
is  available ;  Trust  it  and  use  it."  *  Says  Royer  Collard :  "  Bid  not 
reasoning  rest  on  principles  anterior  to  reasoning,  analysis  would  be 
without  end  and  synthesis  without  beginning."  Says  H.  Spencer,  criti- 
cising "  pure  empiricism  or  experimentalism  " :  "  Throughout  its  argu- 
ment there  runs  the  tacit  assumption  that  there  may  be  a  philosophy 
in  which  nothing  is  asserted  but  what  is  proved.  .  .  .  The  conse- 
quence of  this  refusal  to  recognize  some  fundamental  unproved  truth  is 
that  its  fabric  of  conclusions  is  left  without  a  base.  .  .  .  Philo- 
sophy, if  it  does  not  avowedly  stand  on  some  datum  underlying  reason  " 
(i.  e.  reasoning)  "  must  acknowledge  that  it  has  nothing  on  which  to 
stand." f  Elsewhere  Mr.  Spencer  criticises  "the  metaphysicians"  for 
giving  more  weight  to  reasoning  than  to  the  simple  deliverances  of  con- 
sciousness ;  and  contrasts  them  in  this  respect  both  with  the  "  mass  of 
men  "  and  "  men  of  science."  He  censures  them  for  "  a  tacit  assump- 
tion that  the  mode  of  intellectual  action  distinguished  as  reasoning  is 
more  trustworthy  than  any  other  mode  of  intellectual  action."  J 

III.  The  rational  intuitions  are  verified  in  experience. 

It  is  impossible,  of  course,  fully  to  verify  them  in  this  way  because 
experience  is  limited  and  cannot  be  co-ordinate  with  the  universal. 
But  so  far  as  human  experience  extends  it  verifies  the  principles  of 
rational  intuition. 

They  are  inherent  in  the  common  sense  which  regulates  the  action 
of  common  life ;  and  our  every-day  thinking  and  action  verify  them. 

They  are  continually  verified  in  physical  science.  The  principles 
which  regulate  our  thinking  are  found  to  be  regulative  of  the  constitu- 
tion and  course  of  nature.  Natural  science  is  the  knowledge  of 
systemized  nature.  The  fact-system  in  nature  is  found  to  be  the 
thought-system  of  reason.  The  discovery  of  this  system  in  nature  and 
its  enunciation  constitute  physical  science.  In  registering  the  system 

*"  Hier  gilt  nur  der  eine  Rath:  vertraue  und  handle." 

f  Principles  of  Psychology,  Vol.  II.  pp.  391,  392. 

{  Psychology,  Part  VII.  chaps,  ii.-iv.,  Vol.  II.  pp.  312,  317,  336. 


124  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

of  nature  in  science  the  mind  registers  in  science  its  own  trustworthi- 
ness and  verifies  the  principles  and  laws  of  its  own  rationality. 

This  is  exemplified  in  mathematics,  which  is  wholly  a  creation  of  the 
mind.  In  geometry  we  deal  only  with  imaginary  lines  and  figures  ;  in 
algebra  we  do  not  limit  ourselves  even  by  numbers,  but  use  symbols 
equally  significant  of  all  numbers.  By  complicated  and  intricate 
processes  we  reach  as  the  result  empty  forms  of  thought  expressed  in 
mathematical  signs.  Yet  we  find  that  these  are  the  forms  in  which  the 
universe  is  constituted  and  the  formulas  which  express  the  laws  of  its 
action.  The  law  of  gravitation  could  never  have  been  discovered  by 
observation ;  it  is  derived  from  an  a  priori  mathematical  principle. 
Yet  it  is  found  to  be  the  law  which  matter  to  the  remotest  star  obeys. 
So  in  induction,  by  the  help  of  an  intuitive  and  universal  principle  we 
pass  from  the  known  to  the  unknown,  from  the  particular  to  the 
general,  immeasurably  beyond  the  range  of  observation  and  experi- 
ment. And  in  hypotheses  we  create  imaginary  systems  and  then  by 
observation  find  that  the  same  systems  have  been  created  in  the  actual 
universe.  Often,  as  I  have  elsewhere  said,  these  anticipations  of  dis- 
covery have  been  made  by  students  of  philosophy  not  engaged  in  the 
scientific  observation  of  nature,  and  not  till  years  and  perhaps  genera- 
tions afterwards  has  some  observer,  guided  by  the  hypothesis,  found  it 
real  in  nature. 

To  evade  the  force  of  this  reasoning  we  have  been  told  of  late  that 
the  law  of  gravitation  is  not  exactly  correct,  though  sufficiently  so  for 
our  purposes,  and  "  that  we  have  no  reason  for  believing  that  the  known 
lawrs  of  geometry  and  mechanics  are  exactly  and  absolutely  true  at 
present,  or  that  they  have  been  approximately  true  for  any  period  of 
time  further  than  we  have  direct  evidence  of."  *  But  since  the  law  of 
gravitation  enables  astronomers  to  predict  many  phenomena  of  the 
solar  system  to  a  second  and  since  the  perturbations  are  in  other  cases 
so  complicated  as  to  present  a  mathematical  problem  which  no  human 
mind  is  competent  to  solve,  it  is  more  probable  that  the  calculator  has 
left  out  some  element  of  the  problem  than  that  the  law  of  gravitation 
is  not  correct. 

This  verification  of  rational  intuition  by  facts  is  continually  going  on 
in  the  life  of  the  individual  and  in  the  processes  of  human  thought  and 
the  progress  of  science.  It  is  a  never  ending  verification  of  the  trust- 
worthiness of  human  reason  and  the  validity  of  its  regulative  principles. 
Through  the  whole  history  of  human  thought  man  is  always  finding  the 
universal  manifested  in  the  particular,  the  necessary  in  the  contingent, 
the  unchanging  in  the  transitory,  the  rational  in  the  natural.  So  the 

*Prof.  Clifford's  Essays,  i.  221,  222,  224. 


WHAT  IS   KNOWN  THROUGH  RATIONAL  INTUITION.         125 

ocean  swells  up  and  manifests  itself  in  the  unending  succession  of  its 
w  nves. 

IV.  Rational  intuition  is  necessary  to  interpret  sense-perception. 

Sensation  reports  correctly  the  peculiar  impression  of  outward  agents 
on  each  sense.  But  it  is  only  by  judgment  in  accordance  with  the  prin- 
ciples of  reason  that  we  apprehend  the  reality  signified  by  the  impres- 
sion on  the  sensorium.  The  senses  show  us  the  sky  as  a  blue  dome,  the 
sun,  moon  and  stars  as  moving  in  it,  parallel  rails  converging  as  they 
recede ;  and  always  we  resort  to  reason  to  interpret  these  presentations 
of  sense  and  ascertain  what  the  reality  is  which  they  bring  before  us. 
The  ear  gives  us  sound,  the  eye  light  and  shade,  the  general  sensorium 
heat ;  but  it  is  thought,  regulated  by  the  principles  of  reason,  which  dis- 
closes the  undulations  which  impinge  on  the  ear  and  cause  sound,  and 
the  molecular  vibrations  which  cause  light  and  heat.  And  it  is  thought, 
guided  by  the  principles  of  reason,  which  carries  knowledge  to  distances 
of  space  and  time  entirely  beyond  the  observation  of  sense,  and  discovers 
that  the  facts  known  by  sense  are  in  the  unity  of  a  rational  system. 

Those  who  doubt  the  validity  of  rational  intuition  are  wont  to  point 
in  contrast  with  great  satisfaction  to  the  clearness  and  certainty  of 
knowledge  by  sense-perception.  But  it  is  evident  that  without  the  aid 
of  the  rational  intuition  sense-perception  could  gain  but  a  small  part  of 
our  knowledge  of  the  physical  universe. 

Plume  has  demonstrated  that  subjective  Idealism,  founded  on  the  be- 
lief that  in  sense-perception  we  have  knowledge  only  of  impressions  on 
the  sensorium,  involves  universal  skepticism.  On  the  other  hand  Kant 
has  demonstrated  that  Sense  alone,  without  rational  principles  given  by 
the  mind,  is  equally  incompetent  to  give  real  knowledge.  Together 
they  have  demonstrated  that  both  presentative  intuition  and  rational 
are  essential  to  knowledge.  The  mind  is  not  passively  recipient  of  im- 
pressions but  active  in  knowing.  The  mind  knows.  And  the  postu- 
lates or  principles  of  rational  intuition  belong  to  the  very  nature  of 
knowledge.  Liard,  as  reported  by  Janet,  says,  "  As  yet  the  Positive 
school  has  not  answered  the  learned  demonstration  of  Kant  on  the  neces- 
sity of  a  priori  principles,  or  rather  has  ignored  it.  It  has  made  no  ad- 
dition to  the  old  empiricism  which  the  school  of  Leibnitz  and  Kant 
refuted."  Any  system  of  Positivism  like  that  of  Comte,  propounded  as 
a  theory  of  knowledge  without  noticing  the  principles  established  by 
Hume  and  Kant,  is  not  entitled  to  the  attention  of  scholars.  Accord- 
ingly Lange  says, "  The  very  attempt  to  construct  a  philosophical  theory 
of  things  exclusively  on  the  physical  sciences  must  in  these  days  be  de- 
scribed as  a  philosophical  one-sidedness  of  the  worst  kind."  * 

*  Geschichte  des  Materialismus ;  B.  II.  Sect.  II.  Chap.  I. 


126  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

I  conclude,  therefore,  that  the  power  of  rational  intuition  is  essential 
in  the  idea  of  Reason,  as  extension  is  in  the  idea  of  body.  The  know- 
ledge of  first  principles  of  reason  is  essential  to  all  knowledge  which 
rises  above  mere  impressions  or  phenomena,  and  is  inherent  in  the  na- 
ture of  rational  intelligence.  The  denial  of  them  involves  complete 
agnosticism.  This  result  Fitz-James  Stephen  exemplifies  when  he  says, 
"  It  is  surely  obvious  that  all  physical  science  is  only  a  probability,  and, 
what  is  more,  one  which  we  have  no  means  whatever  of  measur- 
ing. .  .  .  The  present  is  a  mere  film  melting  into  the  past."  *  We 
accept,  therefore,  as  the  most  fundamental  postulate,  the  principle  that 
the  self-evident  and  necessary  intuitions  of  the  mind  are  true.  Of  this 
postulate  H.  Spencer  says,  "  Not  even  a  reason  for  doubting  its  validity 
can  be  given  without  tacitly  asserting  its  validity."  f 

V.  It  is  objected  that  these  principles  are  not  universally  believed. 
It  is  said,  If  they  are  constitutional  and  self-evident,  every  one  must  be- 
lieve them ;  and  this,  it  is  said,  is  not  the  fact. 

1.  In  sustaining  this  position  it  is  usually  urged  that  infants  and 
savages  have  no  knowledge  of  them.  As  thus  urged  the  objection  is 
founded  on  misapprehension  of  the  doctrine.  It  is  pertinent  only 
against  innate  ideas,  the  existence  of  which  no  one  affirms,  not  against 
rational  intuitions  existing  as  constitutional  norms  and  elements  of 
rationality,  and  rising  in  consciousness  as  regulative  of  thought  only  on 
occasion  in  experience. 

The  customary  attempt  to  discredit  the  principles  and  laws  of  thought 
because  infants  and  savages  are  not  conscious  of  them  is  unscientific. 
It  rests  on  the  false  assumption  that  nothing  is  constitutional  in  man 
except  what  infants  and  savages  are  conscious  of;  human  powers  are  to 
be  ascertained  not  by  observing  what  they  are  in  mature  men  but  only 
what  they  are  in  their  nascent  state  in  infancy  and  savagery.  It  is  an 
appeal  from  facts  to  fancies,  from  what  we  know  to  what  we  do  not 
know.  This  kind  of  reasoning  would  prove  that  it  is  not  natural  to 
man  to  have  a  beard,  or  teeth,  or  parental  affection ;  or  that  it  is  not 
natural  to  an  apple  to  bear  blossoms  and  apples  because  they  are  not 
observed  in  the  seed.  We  do  not  study  the  acorn  to  find  out  what 
the  oak  is,  but  the  oak  to  find  out  what  the  acorn  is. 

The  objection  rests  on  the  further  mistake,  in  respect  to  savages,  that 
a  principle  does  not  regulate  thought  and  action  until  it  is  consciously 
formulated.  The  doctrine  is  that  men  think  and  act  under  the  regula- 
tion of  these  principles  even  when  they  have  never  consciously  formu- 
lated them.  The  objection,  therefore,  is  founded  on  a  misapprehension 
of  the  doctrine.  The  validity  of  rational  intuition,  in  its  true  meaning 

*  Liberty,  Equality,  Fraternity,  pp.  346,  347. 
f  Psychology,  Vol.  II.  p.  491. 


WHAT  IS  KNOWN  THROUGH  RATIONAL  INTUITION.         127 

is  sustained  by  the  common  consciousness  of  mankind  ;  and  in  vindi- 
cating it  we  avail  ourselves  of  this  ancient  argument,  which  Hesiod 
states  at  the  end  of  his  "  Works  and  Days:"  "The  word  proclaimed 
by  the  concordant  voice  of  mankind  fails  not;  for  it  is  a  sort  of  di- 
vinity." * 

2.  But  we  are  told  that  these  beliefs  are  not  necessary  even  to  culti- 
vated persons.  J.  S.  Mill  says  :  "  Any  one  accustomed  to  abstraction 
and  analysis,  who  will  fairly  exert  his  faculties  for  the  purpose,  will, 
when  his  imagination  has  once  learned  to  entertain  the  notion,  find  no 
difficulty  in  conceiving  that  in  some  one  of  the  many  firmaments  into 
which  sidereal  astronomy  now  divides  the  universe,  events  may  succeed 
one  another  at  random  without  any  fixed  law  ;  nor  can  anything  in  our 
experience  or  in  our  mental  nature  constitute  a  sufficient,  or  indeed  any 
reason  for  believing  that  this  is  nowhere  the  case."  f  Mr.  Mill  held 
that  all  necessary  beliefs  arise  from  association  of  ideas  in  the  life-time 
of  an  individual.  He  could  consistently  suppose  that  under  new  condi- 
tions new  associations  could  be  formed.  But  here  he  supposes  new  con- 
ditions which  break  up  the  old  associations  without  forming  new  ones. 
His  supposition,  therefore,  is  directly  in  contradiction  to  his  own  theory. 
Mr.  Mill  does  not  say  that  he  can  conceive  of  such  a  world  of  unreason, 
but  only  that  he  thinks  one  might  learn  to  conceive  of  it. 

It  is  very  common  for  skeptics  who  hold  that  our  knowledge  is 
unreal  because  known  through  our  own  reason,  to  tell  us  of  a  world 
possibly  known  to  other  minds  in  which  right  is  wrong,  and  the  angles 
of  a  triangle  may  be  equal  to  six  right  angles,  or  a  hollow  sphere  with 
continuous  surface  may  be  turned  inside  out  without  rupture.  But 
when  we  attend  to  it  we  see  that  it  is  a  mere  Shemhamphorash  or 
abracadabra,  words  to  conjure  with,  which  overawe  the  unthinking  but 
are  seen  by  all  thoughtful  persons  to  be  sounds  without  meaning. 
Accordingly  Comte  and  others  who  exclude  the  very  ideas  of  cause, 
force,  and  being  from  scientific  thought  and  limit  it  to  phenomena,  yet 
continually  think  and  write  under  the  regulation  of  the  principles 
which  they  reject.  The  existence  of  the  real  is  unavoidably  asserted 
in  every  attempt  to  prove  that  knowledge  is  only  relative;  the  ex- 
istence of  both  subject  and  object  is  asserted  in  every  proof  that  we 
know  no  objective  reality  ;  the  knowledge  what  a  true  cause  is  as 
distinguished  from  an  invariable  antecedent  is  asserted  in  every  denial 
of  the  possibility  of  having  knowledge  of  a  true  cause  ;  the  validity  of 
rational  intuitions  is  appealed  to  in  asserting  that  they  cannot  be  valid  ; 


*  $f]iirj  d'bvrrore  Train—  av  OTrdAAvrru  rjv  nva  TCQ/.?.OI 

Aaoi  $7]uiZ,ovGi'  0£6f  vv  riq  earl  KOI  avrrj. 
|  Logic,  B.  III.  Chap.  21,  §  1. 


128  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM, 

the  idea  of  God  is  recognized  in  denying  the  possibility  of  knowing 
him.  And  whatever  theory  of  knowledge  or  of  agnosticism  prevails, 
men  go  on,  alike  in  common  life  and  in  scientific  investigation,  prosecu- 
ting work,  constructing  institutions,  enlarging  science,  subduing  and 
civilizing  the  earth,  and  all  in  tacit  accordance  with  the  principles 
regulative  of  all  thinking. 

VI.  Another  objection  is  that  Reason  breaks  down  at  last  in  irrecon- 
cilable contradictions.  Though  all  must  necessarily  believe  these  prin- 
ciples yet  they  are  contradictory  to  each  other.  We  necessarily  believe 
each  of  two  contradictory  propositions. 

1.  The  second  idea  of  the  reason,  according  to  Kant,  is  the  Cosmos. 
In  developing  the  cosmological  ideas,  there  arise  certain  "sophistical 
propositions  "  which  are  necessary  "  in  the  very  nature  of  reason,"  but 
which  are  "  contrary "  to  each  other.  These  he  calls  "  antinomies." 
His  four  antinomies  pertain  solely  to  his  second  idea  of  Reason,  the 
Cosmos.  In  the  first  the  thesis  affirms  as  a  necessary  belief  that  the 
world  is  limited  in  time  and  space ;  the  antithesis  affirms  as  equally 
necessary  the  belief  that  it  is  not  thus  limited  but  is  infinite  in  time 
and  space.  In  the  second  the  thesis  is  that  the  world  consists  of  simple 
parts ;  the  antithesis,  that  no  simple  substance  exists.  In  the  third  the 
thesis  is  that  free-will  exists;  the  antithesis,  that  free-will  does  not 
exist,  but  every  thing  happens  necessarily  under  the  laws  of  nature. 
In  the  fourth  the  thesis  is  that  an  Absolute  Being  exists;  the  anti- 
thesis, that  Absolute  Being  does  not  exist  either  in  the  world  or  out 
of  it. 

The  agnosticism  and  materialism  of  this  day  make  frequent  appeals  to 
Kant's  antinomies.  Prof.  Clifford  says  that  in  this  "  famous  doctrine  of 
the  antinomies  "  Kant  first  set  forth  the  opinion,  "  held  by  great  numbers 
of  the  philosophers  who  have  lived  in  the  brightening  ages  of  Europe," 
"  that  at  the  basis  of  the  natural  order  there  is  something  which  we  can' 
know  to  be  unreasonable"  *  From  this  doctrine  of  the  antinomies  Ham- 
ilton derives  his  fundamental  law  that  "  thought  is  possible  only  in  the 
conditioned  interval  between  unconditioned  contradictory  extremes  or 
poles,  each  of  which  is  altogether  inconceivable,  but  of  which  .  . 
the  one  or  the  other  is  necessarily  true."  Accordingly  he  regards  the 
causal  judgment  and  the  other  first  principles  of  reason  as  resulting, 
not  from  a  power  of  positive  self-evident  knowledge,  but  from  an  im- 
potence of  mind  to  think  the  inconceivable  and  to  believe  the  contra- 
dictory. Thus  he  interprets  the  antinomies  as  manifesting  simply  "  the 
common  principle  of  a  limitation  of  our  faculties.  Intelligence  is 
shown  to  be  feeble,  but  not  false ;  our  nature  is  thus  not  a  lie  nor  the 

*  Lecture  on  the  Aims  and  Instruments  of  Science  delivered  before  the  members  of 
the  British  Association  at  Brighton,  Aug.  19,  1872. 


WHAT  IS  KNOWN   THROUGH  RATIONAL  INTUITION.         129 

author  of  our  nature  a  deceiver."  *  The  truthfulness  of  our  nature  is 
consistent  with  the  antinomies  rightly  interpreted ;  but  it  is  impossible 
to  reach  this  result  and  thus  to  rescue  the  trustworthiness  of  reason 
and  the  reality  of  knowledge,  if  with  Hamilton  we  interpret  the 
antinomies  as  direct  contradictories. 

Mansel  in  his  "  Limits  of  Religious  Thought "  accepts  the  doctrine 
that  the  antinomies  are  contradictories  and  uses  it  in  defence  of  reli- 
gious belief.  He  argues  that  if  in  developing  religious  ideas  we  find 
ourselves  necessarily  involved  in  contradictions,  the  fact  does  not  in- 
validate our  knowledge,  because  in  philosophy  and  indeed  in  the 
ultimate  development  of  thought  on  any  subject,  reason  necessarily 
involves  us  in  similar  contradictions.  It  is  surprising  that  this  defence 
of  religious  belief  was  welcomed  with  exulting  applause  by  many 
theologians.  It  is  not  surprising  that  it  was  also  gladly  welcomed  by 
skeptics,  not  as  proving  the  reality  of  religious  knowledge,  but  as  dis- 
proving philosophy,  and  ultimately  the  reality  of  all  knowledge. 

Through  these  and  similar  interpretations  of  Kant's  antinomies  it  has 
come  to  pass  that  skepticism,  appealing  to  them,  habitually  assumes 
that  philosophy  in  the  conclusions  of  its  greatest  masters  has  itself 
acknowledged  its  own  incompetence  and  demonstrated  that  reason,  on 
which  it  claims  to  rest,  in  its  ultimate  principles  necessarily  breaks 
down  in  self-contradiction. 

2.  If  it  is  a  fact  that  reason  necessarily  issues  in  the  necessary  belief 
of  contradictories,  the  objection  is  fatal.  Reason  is  no  longer  trust- 
worthy, the  laws  which  necessarily  regulate  all  thinking  are  discredited, 
the  results  of  thought  are  disintegrated,  and  knowledge  is  volatilized 
into  empty  impressions  and  disappears. 

It  is  evident,  also,  that  this  objection  is  the  only  one  by  which  it  is 
possible  to  disprove  the  trustworthiness  of  the  reason  or  the  truthful- 
ness of  its  necessary  intuitions.  Reason  cannot  avail  itself  of  any 
faculty  more  rational  than  itself  nor  lift  itself  to  any  sphere  of  know- 
ledge above  and  beyond  its  own,  by  comparison  with  which  to  disprove 
its  own  intuitions.  But  if  its  own  necessary  intuitions  contradict  each 
other  it  can  know  the  fact,  and  then  must  also  know  that  some  of  its 
necessary  intuitions  are  false  and  that  it  is  itself  discredited  as  an 
organ  of  the  knowledge  of  truth.  There  is  no  other  way  conceivable 
by  which  reason  can  know  itself  untrustworthy. 

And  it  must  be  noticed  that  even  here  it  is  the  authority  of  reason 
itself  to  which  reason  appeals  in  judging  that  two  contradictories  can- 
not both  be  true.  It  is  the  first  and  most  fundamental  principle  of 
reason,  the  law  of  non-contradiction,  the  truth  of  which  is  acknowledged 

*  Philosophy  of  Common  Sensp,  p.  20 ;  Philosophy  of  the  Conditioned,  pp.  500, 
505,  Wight's  Ed.  of  Hamilton's  Philosophy. 
9 


130  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

in  judging  all  other  principles  of  reason  unworthy  of  belief.     Reason 
therefore  would  necessarily  trust  itself  in  judging  itself  untrustworthy. 

3.  The  antinomies  rightly  understood  are  not  contradictories ;  the 
thesis  and  antithesis  are  true  respectively  of  different  realities,  or  they 
are  complemental  truths  of  the  same  reality,  opposite  poles  of  bi-polar 
truth.  Reality  is  known  under  antinomies  because  it  includes  diverse 
beings  and  exists  under  contrasted  and  complemental  aspects.  It  is 
easy  to  show  in  this  way  that  Kant's  antinomies  are  not  contradictories. 
In  the  first,  the  thesis  is  true  of  the  material  universe ;  the  antithesis  is 
true  of  space  and  time,  since  these  can  be  bounded  respectively  only  by 
further  space  and  time ;  and  it  is  also  true  of  God.  In  the  second,  the 
thesis  expresses  the  consciousness  of  self  persisting  in  individuality  and 
identity ;  the  antithesis  expresses  the  consciousness  of  varied  qualities 
and  acts  in  which  self  exists  and  is  known.  The  same  thesis  and 
antithesis  are  true  of  the  factually  infrangible  atoms,  if  they  exist. 
Thought  is  always  dual ;  its  first  act  is  the  apprehension  of  a  being  in 
its  qualities  and  acts.  But  the  existence  of  a  being  in  its  qualities 
involves  no  contradiction  ;  the  antinomy  is  only  the  expression  of  com- 
plemental truths ;  the  two  sides  or  aspects  of  one  reality.  In  respect 
to  the  third,  if  we  admit  the  existence  of  personal  free-agents  the  con- 
tradiction disappears ;  for  the  thesis  is  true  of  free-agents,  the  antithesis, 
of  impersonal  things ;  or  they  express  respecting  man  the  complemental 
truths  that  he  is  at  once  free  and  dependent.  In  the  fourth,  the  thesis 
is  true  of  God.  the  antithesis  of  the  finite  universe.  This  antinomy  is 
more  commonly  expressed  as  Spencer  gives  it :  "  If  we  admit  there  is 
something  uncaused  there  is  no  reason  to  assume  a  cause  for  any 
thing ; "  *  or  conversely  "  Since  every  thing  is  caused,  God,  if  he  exists, 
must  have  a  cause."  The  seeming  contradiction  is  removed  when  we 
know  that  the  thesis  and  antithesis  pertain  to  different  realities.  The 
causal  judgment  is  not,  "  Every  thing  must  have  a  cause,"  but,  "  Every 
beginning  or  change  of  existence  must  have  a  cause ; "  this  is  true  of  all 
which  begins  and  changes.  Reason  gives  us,  as  the  thesis,  another 
necessary  truth,  "  An  Absolute,  Uncaused,  and  all-conditioning  Being 
must  exist."  These  are  not  contradictory,  but  complemental  truths. 

In  a  similar  manner  other  antinomies,  urged  by  skeptics  and 
agnostics  to  prove  that  reason  is  contradictory  to  itself,  may  be  demon- 
strated to  be  no  contradictions.  They  are  commonly  founded  on  assumed 
contradictions  between  being  and  its  qualities  or  modes  of  existence,  or 
between  noumena  and  phenomena,  or  between  the  personal  and  the  im- 
personal, or  between  freedom  and  dependence,  or  between  the  absolute 
and  the  finite,  or  betAveen  the  absoluteness  of  God  and  his  personality. 

*  First  Principles,  p.  37. 


WHAT  IS  KNOWN  THROUGH  RATIONAL  INTUITION.         131 

Kant's  antinomies  become  contradictions  because,  on  account  of  his 
phenomenalism,  his  antithesis  of  phenomenon  and  noumenon  is  so 
complete  that  they  are  reciprocally  exclusive  and  therefore  contradic- 
tory ;  they  pertain  to  no  common  object,  and  the  intellectual  acts  by 
which  they  are  brought  before  the  mind  have  no  common  intelligence 
as  their  root.  The  consequence  is  that  the  phenomenon  is  a  mere 
subjective  impression  and  without  objective  reality,  and,  as  out  of  all 
relation  to  the  noumenon,  irrational  and  absurd ;  and  the  noumenon  as 
out  of  all  relation  to  the  human  faculties  and  to  the  phenomenon  and 
unlike  to  anything  which  we  conceive  the  phenomenon  to  be,  is  as  truly 
as  the  phenomenon  void  of  objective  reality,  and  even  as  a  subjective 
reality  is  unthinkable  except  as  a  symbol  of  the  truism  that  something 
may  exist  transcending  our  power  to  know.  It  follows  that  the 
propositions  necessarily  affirmed  of  the  one  are  contradictory  to  those 
necessarily  affirmed  of  the  other. 

This  contradiction  is  removed  by  the  synthesis  of  the  knowledge  of 
particular  beings  in  presentative  intuition,  with  the  knowledge  of  prin- 
ciples true  of  all  beings  in  rational  intuition.  Then  there  is  no  longer 
the  phenomenon  known  in  sense  and  the  totally  different  noumenon 
known  in  reason ;  but  being  known  at  once  by  presentative  intuition  in 
its  particular  reality  and  by  rational  intuition  in  its  relation  to  univer- 
sal truths  and  laws.  The  intuitions,  whether  presentative  or  rational, 
pertain  to  a  common  object  and  have  their  root  in  a  common  intelli- 
gence. The  subjective  and  objective  are  no  longer  contradictory,  but 
intelligence  is  the  intellectual  equivalent  of  reality,  the  objective  reality 
accords  with  the  subjective  ideas  of  reason  and  the  subjective  ideas  oF 
reason  are  expressed  in  objective  reality. 

The  antinomies  are  commonly  explained  as  resulting  from  an 
attempt  of  the  understanding,  under  the  forms  of  sense,  to  apprehend 
and  define  the  ideas  of  the  higher  reason.  But  this  is  only  carrying 
into  psychology  the  same  divisive  antithesis,  as  if  sense,  understanding 
and  reason  were  shut  completely  apart  from  each  other.  The  Kantian 
classification  of  Sense,  Understanding  and  Reason  tends  to  create  and 
perpetuate  this  disintegration  of  the  intellectual  powers.  The  classifi- 
cation of  them  as  Intuition,  presentative  and  rational,  Representation, 
and  Reflection  or  Thought,  takes  up  all  the  facts,  while  it  emphasizes 
the  unity  of  the  mind  in  all  its  processes  and  the  unity  of  its  intelli- 
gence as  having  a  common  root  and  concerned  with  a  common  object. 

It  must  be  added,  however,  that  notwithstanding  Kant's  sharp 
division  of  Sense,  Understanding  and  Reason,  his  Reason  is  not  the 
organ  of  rational  intuitions,  but  only  the  understanding  itself  acting 
in  its  higher  range  and  on  its  ultimate  problems.  There  is  no  differ- 
ence of  kind  between  the  two.  He  finds  the  rational  intuitions  in  the 


132  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

forms  of  sense  and  the  categories  of  the  understanding.  It  is  the 
deficiencies  and  inconsistencies  of  his  system  which  have  made  it 
legitimately  the  source  of  two  completely  incompatible  systems  of 
thought,  the  one  Idealistic  and  Pantheistic,  the  other  phenomenalistic 
and  agnostic.  At  the  same  time  the  truths  which  he  indicates,  brought 
into  harmony  by  correcting  his  inconsistencies  and  errors,  constitute  a 
true  philosophy  which  is  a  firm  foundation  for  Theism.  His  method 
of  deducing  psychological  facts  and  metaphysical  principles  from  forms 
of  logic  necessarily  leads  to  error. 

An  antinomy,  in  its  true  meaning,  may  arise  whenever  the  mind 
cognizes  the  same  object  by  different  intellectual  processes  and  thus 
knows  it  in  different  aspects.  The  logical  puzzles  of  Zeno  are  ex- 
amples. In  observing  the  motion  of  bodies  by  common  sense  or  by 
.physical  science  in  the  methods  of  concrete  thought,  no  contradiction 
appears.  But  when  we  think  of  motion  solely  in  the  forms  of  logic  we 
prove  it  to  be  impossible  for  a  body  at  rest  to  begin  to  move  ;  because 
it  cannot  begin  to  move  while  it  is  at  rest,  and  cannot  begin  to  move 
after  it  is  in  motion ;  therefore  it  can  never  begin  to  move.  Another 
illustration  of  antinomies  resulting  from  attaining  the  same  truth  by 
different  methods  may  be  found  in  solving  geometrical  problems  by 
algebraic  methods.  We  may  reach  as  a  result  the  square  root  of  minus 
a  which  is  impossible  and  yet  has  been  demonstrated  mathematic- 
ally to  be  the  correct  result.  Now  if  we  solve  the  problem  by 
geometrical  methods  we  find  the  real  significance  of  the  seeming  con- 
tradiction of  the  algebraic  result  to  be  that  the  line  in  question  is 
produced  in  the  opposite  direction.  There  may  be,  therefore,  antino- 
mies whenever  we  know  an  object  by  different  intellectual  processes  ; 
and  the  antinomy  may  be  interpreted  as  a  contradiction  until  we  find 
a  synthesis  of  the  aspect  of  reality  known  by  one  process  with  the 
aspect  of  the  same  reality  known  by  the  other  process. 

Kant's  own  reconciliation  of  the  thesis  and  antithesis  is  that  the  one 
is  true  of  the  phenomenon  or  thing  as  it  appears,  and  the  other  of  the 
noumenon,  or  thing  as  it  is  in  itself.  * 

This  method  of  reconciliation  is  correct  in  principle,  but  on  account 
of  his  separation  of  the  phenomenon  and  the  noumenon  already  indi- 
cated it  is  practically  unavailing  in  the  Kantian  system,  and  the  thesis 
and  antithesis  remain  contradictory,  and  each  alike  fails  to  express  real 
knowledge. 

4.  Therefore  the  argument  from  the  antinomies  does  not  prove  that 
reason  contradicts  itself  and  is  untrustworthy,  but  it  is  a  demonstration 
of  the  reality  of  our  knowledge  of  being,  of  personal  being  in  distinction 

*  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  Preface  to  2d  Edition. 


WHAT  IS  KNOWN  THEOUGH  RATIONAL  INTUITION.         133 

from  impersonal,  and  of  God.  If  no  absolute  being,  that  is,  no  God, 
exists,  then  reason  breaks  down  in  contradiction  and  knowledge  is  im- 
possible ;  if  God,  the  Absolute  Being,  exists,  reason  is  in  harmony  with 
itself  and  with  all  knowrn  reality.  Therefore  the  idea  of  God  is  involved 
in  the  very  essence  of  rationality.  Rationality  cannot  develop  itself 
legitimately  without  it,  but  breaks  down  in  unreason.  The  same  argu- 
ment applies  to  our  immediate  knowledge  of  being  and  of  personal 
being.  If  this  knowledge  is  not  real,  the  reason  breaks  down  in  contra- 
dictions and  knowledge  is  impossible ;  if  this  knowledge  of  being  and 
of  personal  being  is  real,  then  reason  is  in  harmony  with  itself  and 
trustworthy  hi  all  its  utterances.  Therefore  the  reality  of  being,  of  per- 
sonal being  and  impersonal,  and  of  absolute  being,  is  involved  in  the 
very  essence  of  rationality.  Rationality  cannot  legitimately  develop 
itself  without  recognizing  their  reality,  but  breaks  down  hi  unreason. 

Kant  himself  argues  that  his  criticism  of  reason  shows  that  its  ideas 
cannot  be  cognized  in  experience  and  that  the  laws  of  the  finite  (the 
causal  judgment,  &c.)  do  not  cover  the  whole  ground.  If  they  did 
there  could  be  no  freedom  and  no  God.  l^ow,  he  argues,  we  establish 
something  beyond  experience  which  is  thinkable.  And  because  that 
something  beyond  experience  must  exist  in  order  that  experience  may 
exist,  it  is  real.  And  thus  the  judgments  as  to  what  is  cognized  in 
experience  are  in  harmony  with  the  judgments  as  to  wThat  transcends 
experience.*  This  demonstrates  that  Kant  regarded  his  doctrine  of 
the  antinomies  as  a  defence  of  the  belief  in  freedom  and  in  the  absolute 
being,  not  as  antagonistic  to  those  doctrines.  But  the  argument  from 
them  for  the  existence  of  free  will  and  of  God,  and  for  the  real  know- 
ledge of  being'  and  of  the  distinction  of  the  personal  and  the  imper- 
sonal, and  for  the  complete  trustworthiness  of  reason,  becomes  clear  and 
decisive  only  when  the  antinomies  are  cleared  from  the  contradictori- 
ness  and  falsity  brought  into  them  by  the  disjunction  of  the  phenomenon 
and  the  noumenon. 

5.  It  has  been  said  that  Herbert  Spencer's  agnosticism  "  began  with 
Kant."  He  himself  avows  that  it  is  "  carrying  a  step  further  the  doc- 
trine put  into  shape  by  Hamilton  and  Mansel."  It  is  a  legitimate  out- 
come of  the  errors  in  one  side  of  Kant's  philosophy,  and  may  perhaps 
be  historically  traced  back  to  him  through  successive  stages  of  thought 
growing  out  of  these  errors.  But  it  differs  widely  from  Kant's  philos- 
ophy. Mr.  Spencer  regards  as  unknowable  whatever  is  inconceivable, 
whether  in  the  sense  of  not  picturable  in  the  imagination  or  not  sus- 
ceptible of  being  included  in  a  logical  concept  or  general  notion.  He 
says  of  it  in  the  latter  sense :  "  The  first  cause,  the  infinite,  the  absolute, 

*  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  Preface  to  2d  Edition. 


134  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

to  be  known  at  all  must  be  classed.   To  be  positively  thought  of,  it  must 

be  thought  of  as  such  or  such,  as  of  this  or  that  kind There 

cannot  be  more  than  one  first  cause The  unconditioned,  as 

classible  neither  with  any  form  of  the  conditioned  nor  with  any  other 
unconditioned,  cannot  be  classed  at  all.  And  to  admit  that  it  cannot 
be  known  as  of  such  or  such  kind,  is  to  admit  that  it  is  unknowable."  * 
In  the  antinomy  here  assumed  the  thesis  is,  We  necessarily  know 
that  absolute  being  exists.  The  antithesis  is,  It  cannot  be  included  in 
a  logical  concept,  therefore,  as  existent,  "  the  absolute  cannot  in  any 
manner  or  degree  be  known,  in  the  strict  sense  of  knowing  "  ;  it  is  not 
"  even  thinkable."  f  But  the  inconceivable  is  not  the  contradictory  of  the 
knowable  and  thinkable ;  the  inconceivable  in  either  of  the  two  senses 
may  be  knowable.  This  I  have  already  proved.  The  logical  concept 
itself  is  inconceivable  in  the  representations  of  imagination.  And  in 
order  to  know  the  individual  it  is  not  necessary  to  know  it  in  a  logical 
concept.  The  concrete  individual  is  the  unit  of  thought  and  must  be 
known  as  an  individual  before  the  logical  concept  can  be  formed.  The 
"  such  or  such,"  must  be  known  as  qualities  of  an  individual  before 
they  can  be  known  as  characteristics  of  a  "  kind  "  or  class.  The  fact 
that  there  is  and  can  be  but  one  Absolute  Being  is,  therefore,  not  in- 
compatible with  the  knowledge  of  the  Absolute  Being.  Mr.  Spencer's 
reasoning  here  is  precisely  of  the  type  of  erroneous  reasoning  commonly 
charged  with  abundant  ridicule  on  the  mediaeval  scholastics,  and  which 
was  the  occasion  of  the  "  word-weariness,"  as  Prof.  Tyndall  happily 
calls  it,  which  led  to  the  return  to  scientific  methods ;  it  assumes  that 
the  knowledge  of  the  particular  being  depends  on  and  is  derived  from 
the  general  notion  or  logical  concept  and  can  go  no  farther  than  its 
analysis ;  whereas  in  all  scientific  thinking  it  is  assumed  that  the 
logical  concept  depends  on,  and  is  derived  from  the  knowledge  of 
the  particular  or  individual  being.  It  must  be  added  that  since, 
as  Spencer  himself  implies,  the  absolute  is  known  as  Being,  and  so, 
according  to  the  laws  of  thought,  it  must  be  known,  if  known  at 
all,  this  fact  brings  the  absolute  under  the  general  notion  or  concept 
of  being ;  we  distinguish  being  as  conditioned  or  finite,  and  uncon- 
ditioned or  absolute.  And,  besides,  since  the  Absolute  Being  is  the 
supreme  and  absolute  Reason,  it  is  a  personal  being,  and  thus  is  in- 
cluded under  the  general  notion  of  the  personal  as  distinguished  from 
the  impersonal.  The  common  objection  that  personality  and  uncon- 
ditionateness  are  contradictories,  that  personality,  if  predicated  of  the 
absolute,  limits  it  and  thus  annuls  its  absoluteness,  is  an  example  of  an 
antinomy  resolved  by  misapprehension  into  a  contradiction.  Precisely 

*  First  Principles,  p.  81. 
f  pp.  98,  46. 


WHAT  IS  KNOWN  THROUGH  RATIONAL  INTUITION.         135 

the  same  objection  is  equally  pertinent  against  the  affirmation  that  the 
absolute  is  a  being.  Hence  if  the  objection  is  valid,  the  absolute  is 
left  an  adjective  without  a  substantive,  a  quality  without  a  being. 

And  here  we  find  in  Mr.  Spencer's  philosophy  not  a  legitimate  anti- 
nomy but  a  positive  contradiction.  In  the  same  sentence  in  which  he 
declares  "  the  Absolute "  unknowable,  he  says,  "  yet  we  find  that  its 
positive  existence  is  a  necessary  datum  of  consciousness ;  that  so  long  as 
consciousness  continues,  we  cannot  for  an  instant  rid  it  of  this  datum ; 
and  that  thus  the  belief  which  this  datum  constitutes,  has  a  higher 
warrant  than  any  other  whatever."  This  is  positive  contradiction.  If 
the  existence  of  the  Absolute  is  a  necessary  datum  of  consciousness  and 
the  belief  has  a  higher  warrant  than  any  other,  how  is  the  Absolute 
unknown  and  unknowable  ?  And  if  it  is  unknowable,  how  do  we  know 
that  it  exists,  that  is,  is  a  being,  and  that  its  existence  is  the  datum  of  all 
consciousness  ?  And  the  contradiction  becomes  still  more  glaring  when, 
in  the  very  next  paragraph,  he  says  of  the  Absolute  that  we  know  it 
as  an  omnipresent  power,  and  adds,  "  In  this  consciousness  of  an  Incom- 
prehensible Omnipresent  Power,  we  have  just  that  consciousness  in 
which  religion  dwells."  How  can  that  be  unknowable  which  we  know 
to  be  absolute  being,  and  to  be  an  incomprehensible  omnipresent 
power,  and  the  object  of  religious  reverence  ? 

6.  Kant  himself  admits  that,  if  knowledge  begins  as  the  knowledge 
of  real  being,  it  must  by  a  necessary  regress  carry  us  to  a  knowledge  of 
the  absolute  or  unconditioned  being.  "  If  the  conditioned  is  given,  a 
regress  hi  the  series  of  all  its  conditions  is  imperatively  required."  "  If 
the  conditioned  is  given,  the  whole  of  the  conditions,  and  consequently 
the  absolutely  unconditioned,  is  also  given,  whereby  alone  the  former 
(the  conditioned)  was  possible."  *  This  he  enunciates  as  a  necessary 
principle  of  reason.  Thus  if  knowledge  begins  as  the  knowledge  of 
being,  if  the  antagonism  of  phenomenon  and  noumenon  be  brought  to 
an  end  by  their  true  synthesis  in  the  knowledge  of  being,  then  Kant's 
philosophy  carries  us  irresistibly  to  the  knowledge  of  the  Absolute  Being 
and  becomes  the  firm  basis  of  rational  theism.  And  this  Kant  himself 
saw  and  acknowledged. 

VII.  Another  objection  is  urged.  However  necessary  these  intuitive 
beliefs  may  be,  they  do  not  originate  as  the  constituent  elements  of  rea- 
son, but  are  the  result  of  the  association  of  ideas  in  the  experience  of 
the  individual.  Says  J.  S.  Mill,  "The  notion  that  truths  external  to 
the  mind  may  be  known  by  intuition  or  consciousness  independently  of 
observation  and  experience  is  ....  in  these  times  the  great  in- 
tellectual support  of  false  doctrines  and  bad  institutions.  By  the  aid  of 

*  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  Antinomy ;  Section  I.  &  Section  VII. 


136  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

this  theory  every  inveterate  belief  and  every  intense  feeling,  the  origin 
of  which  is  not  remembered,  is  enabled  to  dispense  with  the  obligation 
of  justifying  itself  by  reason,  and  is  erected  into  its  own  all-sufficient 
voucher  and  justification.  There  never  was  such  an  instrument  devised 
for  consecrating  deep  seated  prejudices."  *  Accordingly  in  his  Logic 
he  asserts  that  all  the  so  called  principles  of  reason  are  learned  by  in- 
duction from  repeated  observations,  and  that  the  self-evidence  and  the 
impossibility  of  thinking  the  contrary  are  a  habit  resulting  from  con- 
tinual association  of  ideas.  In  immediate  connection  with  the  passage 
quoted  from  the  autobiography  he  tells  us  why,  in  this  attempt  to  refute 
the  doctrine  of  rational  intuitions,  he  directs  his  attention  chiefly  to 
mathematics :  "  The  chief  strength  of  this  false  philosophy  in  morals, 
politics  and  religion  lies  in  the  appeal  which  it  is  accustomed  to  make 
to  the  evidence  of  mathematics  and  the  cognate  branches  of  physical 
science.  To  expel  it  from  these  is  to  drive  it  from  its  stronghold." 

Diderot  exemplifies  the  same  type  of  thought.  In  reference  to  free- 
will and  the  moral  intuitions  he  says :  "  What  deceives  us  is  the  prodi- 
gious variety  of  our  actions,  joined  to  the  habit  which  we  catch  at  our  birth 
of  confounding  the  voluntary  \vith  the  free.  We  have  so  often  been 
praised  and  blamed  and  have  so  often  praised  and  blamed  others,  that 
we  contract  an  inveterate  prejudice  of  believing  that  we  and  they  act 
freely." 

1.  The  first  answer  is  that  these  principles  are  universal  truths  con- 
ditioning all  rational  intelligence  and  regulating  all  thought,  and  the 
knowledge  of  them  cannot  be  accounted  for  as  originating  in  individual 
experience. 

By  experience  the  objector  means  presentative  intuition.  We  know 
by  experience  only  what  comes  under  our  personal  observation.  But 
presentative  intuition  gives  us  the  knowledge  only  of  particulars,  never 
of  universals.  The  observation  of  all  the  particulars  of  a  specified  kind, 
improperly  called  perfect  induction,  is  possible  only  when  the  particu- 
lars are  few  and  accessible.  It  is  impossible  by  personal  observation  to 
know  all  the  particulars  included  under  a  law  of  nature ;  for  example, 
to  know  by  observation  that  every  motion  of  every  body  in  the  universe 
accords  with  the  law  of  gravitation. 

It  is  equally  impossible  for  any  one  by  his  own  personal  observation 
of  particular  facts  to  attain  the  knowledge  of  any  universal  principles 
by  which  he  can  infer  the  unknown  from  the  knowTn.  It  is  impossible 
by  reasoning  or  any  other  act  of  thought  to  pass  from  particular  known 
objects  to  the  knowledge  of  a  particular  unknown  object  without  some 
universal  principle  to  bridge  the  passage.  No  thinking  about  the  ob- 

*  Autobiography,  pp.  225,  226. 


WHAT  IS   KNOWN  THROUGH  RATIONAL  INTUITION.         137 

served  fall  of  a  single  stone  can  give  me  any  information  about  other 
bodies  never  observed,  if  the  mind  has  no  knowledge  of  universal  prin- 
ciples regulating  its  thinking. 

This  was  clearly  shown  by  Descartes,  who  says :  "  What  can  be  more 
absurd  than  to  pretend  that  ....  by  observing  the  motions  of  bodies 
it  is  possible  to  form  in  the  mind  the  general  idea  that  things  which 
are  equal  to  a  third  are  equal  to  each  other,  or  any  similar  one  he  pleases ; 
for  the  motions  of  bodies  are  particular  and  the  ideas  are  universal, 
having  no  affinity  nor  likeness  to  the  motions."  * 

2.  If  it  were  proved  that  these  regulating  principles  of  thought  are 
the  result  of  individual  experience  and  that  the  necessity  of  believing 
them  results  merely  from  the  association  of  ideas,  they  would  no  longer 
be   of   any   authority    as    regulative    of   thought    and    as   principles 
of  reasoning ;   but  they  would  be  merely  inveterate  prejudices  of  indi- 
viduals. 

3.  Mr.  Mill  claims  that  every  belief  must  "justify  itself  by  reason." 
Accordingly  he  attempts  to  justify  these  principles  by  reason;  yet  all 
that  he  accomplishes  in  the  attempt  is  to  demonstrate,  as  he  imagines, 
that  these  principles  are  merely  inveterate  prejudices  acquired  by  asso- 
ciation of  ideas  in  the  experience  of  the  individual.     Thus  he  logically 
falls  into  the  complete  agnosticism  inseparable  from  the  old  theory  of 
subjective  idealism,  and  verifies  anew  the  maxim  that,  if  we  must  prove 
everything,  we  cannot  prove  anything. 

4.  In  fact,  the  theory  of  Mr.  Mill  has  been  found  entirely  inadequate 
for  the  purposes  of  science  and  is  now  abandoned. 

VIII.  The  objection  now  current  assumes  another  form.  The  self- 
evident  first  principles  which  regulate  all  thought  are  the  result  of  the 
experience  of  the  human  race  transmitted  by  heredity  in  the  course  of 
its  evolution,  and  therefore  are  not  intuitions  or  constituent  elements  of 
reason.  Says  H.  Spencer :  "  Those  who  contend  that  knowledge  results 
wholly  from  the  experiences  of  the  individual,  ignoring  as  they  do  the 
mental  evolution  which  accompanies  the  autogenous  development  of  the 
nervous  system,  fall  into  an  error  as  great  as  if  they  were  to  ascribe  all 
bodily  growth  and  structure  to  exercise,  forgetting  the  innate  tendency 
to  assume  the  adult  form."  f  Within  the  remembrance  of  many  now 
living  two  theories  of  knowledge  have  had  currency,  and  have  been 
abandoned  as  entirely  inadequate  for  the  purposes  of  physical  science ; 
the  Positivism  of  Comte  and  the  associational  theory  of  the  two  Mills 
and  of  Bain.  A  third  theory,  founded  on  evolution,  is  now  current, 
which  still  holds  that  our  knowledge  of  first  principles  originates  in 
experience,  but  substitutes  for  the  experience  of  the  individual  the 

*  Oeuvres,  Vol.  X.,  p.  96. 

f  Psychology,  Vol.  I.,  p.  469,  §  208. 


138  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

experience  of  mankind  transmitted  by  heredity  through  innumerable 
generations. 

1.  This  is  an  admission  that  principles  regulative  of  all  thought  are 
now  constitutional  in  man,  exist  antecedent  to  every  one's  experience 
and  condition  it,  and  thus  are  truly  a  priori  to  the  individual.    Spencer, 
who  claims  to  have  originated  this  theory  of  the  origin  of  first  princi- 
ples, says :  "  The  antagonist  schools  of  philosophy  are  both  compelled  to 
recognize  some  ultimate  law  of  intelligence  Avhich  from  the  beginning 
dominates  over  all  conclusions ;    and  which  must  be  tacitly,  if  not 
avowedly,  recognized  before  any  conclusion  can  be  accepted  rather  than 
some  other.    ...    A  certainty  greater  than  that  which  any  reasoning 
can  yield,  has  to  be  recognized  at  the  outset  of  all  reasoning.    ...    I 
regard  these  data  of  intelligence  as  a  priori  for  the  individual,  but 
a  posteriori  for  that  entire  series  of  individuals  of  which  he  forms  the 
last  term."* 

2.  Here  is  also  the  admission  that  these  primitive  regulative  princi- 
ples are  valid  for  all  knowledge.     They  are  generated  by  the  impress 
of  the  external  world  on  man  through  innumerable  generations,  and 
therefore  must  be  true  intellectual  equivalents  of  the  external  world. 
The  mind  of  man  thus  resulting  from  innumerable  strokes  of  reality 
acting  uniformly  on  him  would  be  an  imprint  of  the  universe,  a  record 
of  its  uniform  sequences  and  laws.     Man  would  have  become  a  micro- 
cosm, a  copy  in  little  of  the  universe ;  his  inborn  instincts  and  intuitions 
would  be  necessarily  correlative  with  reality.     It  would  be  a  sort  of 
scientific  revival  of  Plato's  suggestion  that  our  intuitions  are  reminis- 
cences of  a  previous  existence.     So  Chauncey  Wright  calls  the  rational 
intuition  "  a  primordial  memory."     Murphy,  in  his  "  Scientific  Bases 
of  Faith,"  explains  the  sense  of  beauty  on  this  theory ;  man's  mind 
being  the  imprint  of  nature,  is  pleased  to  recognize  its  own  thoughts 
and  ideals  in  nature.     Noire  calls  man  a  microcosm,  because  in  the 
course  of  his  development  he  has  taken  up  everything  into  himself; 
thought  is  correlative  with  things  because  generated  by  contact  with 
them;    he  goes  at  length  into  details   explaining  it.      He  says,  for 
example,  that  "  the  primitive  cells  which  moved  in  straight  lines  for 
their  food  transmitted  this  quality  to  more  highly  organized  animals ; 
and  thus  a  knoAvledge  of  the  straight  line  is  connatural  to  us."     He 
illustrates  it  by  the  instinct  by  which  a  tiger  measures  the  length  of  his 
spring,  and  the  fish-hawk,  notwithstanding  the  refraction  of  light  in  the 
water,  measures  the  line  of  its  swoop,  f     As  the  law  of  the  conservation 
and  correlation  of  force  is  a  sort  of  rendering  of  the  metaphysical  law 
of  causation  in  the  terms  of  physical  science,  so  we  have  here  a  similar 

*  Psychology,  §?  417,  430,  332. 

|  -Die  Welt  als  Entwickelung  des  Geistes,  pp.  176,  183. 


WHAT  IS   KNOWN  THROUGH  RATIONAL  INTUITION.         139 

rendering  of  the  metaphysical  doctrine  of  rational  intuition.     To  this 
extent  evolutionists  have  come  to  agreement  with  the  rationalists. 

3.  If  the  existence  and  validity  of  the  principles  are  conceded,  the 
question  as  to  their  origin  is  of  minor  importance.     It  is  like  an  anti- 
quarian discussion  of  the  origin  of  a  court   whose   authority  no  one 
disputes.     If  evolution  accounts  for  their  origin  and  at  the  same  time 
proves  that  because   thus   originated  they  now  have  existence   and 
validity  as  the  necessary  a  priori  conditions  of  all  individual  experience 
and  knowledge,  it  is  sufficient  for  my  present  purpose.     The  relation  of 
evolution  to  other  questions  will  be  considered  hereafter. 

4.  Evolution,  however,  does  not  satisfactorily  account  for  the  exist- 
ence  and   validity  of  these  principles  as  the  necessary   condition  of 
knowledge. 

In  the  first  place,  the  impressions  made  by  nature  on  man  cannot 
have  been  continuously  uniform  and  correct,  even  in  respect  to  those 
realities  which  are  recognized  in  the  first  principles.  Take,  for 
example,  the  principle  of  causation.  The  primitive  man,  by  the 
supposition,  is  destitute  of  all  principles  that  regulate  thought.  One 
event  or  combination  of  events  is  just  as  probable  to  him  as  another. 
Not  having  the  idea  of  cause,  when  he  saw  a  body  moving,  he  would 
not  ask,  what  made  it  move.  The  majority  of  movements  would  pre- 
sent no  uniform  sequence  of  antecedent  and  consequent.  When  by 
the  exertion  of  his  own  power  he  had  acquired  the  empirical  idea  of 
causation,  still  the  majority  of  events  would  seem  to  him  uncaused ;  he 
would  have  no  knowledge  of  a  cause  why  water  runs,  or  winds  blow, 
or  rain,  thunder  and  lightning  appear,  or  the  sun  and  stars  move.  He 
would  also  be  the  subject  of  many  illusions.  Under  these  conflicting 
impressions  it  would  be  impossible  that  the  law  of  causation  should 
become  imprinted  on  his  organism.  The  same  is  true  of  other  first 
principles.  And  this  Spencer  admits,  when  treating  another  topic  and 
apparently  not  thinking  of  its  bearing  on  his  theory  of  the  origin  of 
these  principles,  he  says :  "  If  we  contemplate  primitive  human  life  as  a 
whole  we  see  that  multiformity  of  sequence  rather  than  uniformity  of 
sequence  is  the  notion  which  it  tends  to  generate."  * 

In  the  second  place,  the  experience  of  the  race  cannot  be  universal ; 
it  can  never  be  other  than  the  experience  of  many  particulars.  It  can 
never  give  the  universal  principles  by  which  we  pass  from  what  is 
known  in  experience  to  the  knowledge  of  what  is  not  known  in 
experience. 

In  the  third  place,  if  in  any  particular  nature  has  been  continuously 
uniform  in  its  impressions  on  the  organization  and  so  a  corresponding 

*  Psychology,  ii.  pp.  528,  529.,  §  488. 


140  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

belief  has  become  constitutionally  a  law  of  thought,  it  could  not  have 
become  so  if  the  primitive  man  had  not  been  endowed  in  his  constitu- 
tion with  a  capacity  of  being  thus  developed  to  rationality.  All  these 
influences  have  fallen  as  continuously  and  as  uniformly  and  for  a  much 
longer  time  on  the  stones,  the  trees,  the  mollusks  and  the  toads,  without 
developing  them  to  know  a  priori  universal  principles.  There  must 
therefore  have  been  some  factor  at  work  in  the  man  other  than 
what  is  in  the  stone  and  in  the  forces  of  nature  which  have  acted  alike 
on  him  and  on  it.  It  is  very  difficult  to  think  of  the  primitive  man  as 
destitute  of  all  the  constituent  elements  of  reason  which  have  revealed 
themselves  in  our  consciousness  as  the  universal  principles  which  regu- 
late all  our  thinking.  Spencer,  Carpenter  and  others,  who  ascribe  the 
origin  of  these  principles  to  the  experience  of  man  in  his  evolution 
through  innumerable  generations,  always  think  anthropomorphically 
of  the  primitive  man ;  they  unconsciously  ascribe  to  him  the  rational 
powers  possessed  by  man  now.  Spencer  has  much  to  say  of  the  cohe- 
sion of  impressions  or  sensations.  He  unconsciously  hypostasizes  them 
as  entities  or  quiddities,  after  the  manner  of  mediaeval  scholasticism, 
and  thus  blinds  himself  to  the  meaninglessness  of  some  of  his  utterances 
and  the  rationalistic  implications  of  others.  Whatever  meaning  or  no- 
meaning  may  be  in  the  cohesion  or  agglutination  of  sensations  or 
impressions,  it  is  still,  according  to  his  theory,  sensations  or  impressions 
without  reason  or  constituent  elements  of  reason  which  are  ag- 
glutinated; and  the  mere  agglutination,  whatever  that  may  be,  of 
unreason  cannot  produce  reason.  The  evolution  of  rationality,  there- 
fore, presupposes  the  existence  of  reason,  at  least  in  its  constituent 
elements,  in  the  being  that  is  evolved  into  reason.  And  this  is  equally 
true  whether  the  evolution  is  in  the  life-time  of  an  individual  or 
through  innumerable  generations.  If  the  action  of  nature  on  a  prim- 
itive man  evolves  rationality  in  him,  a  rational  constitution  must  have 
belonged  to  him  as  a  capacity  for  such  evolution.  Otherwise  some- 
thing would  come  from  nothing.  There  is  no  chemistry  of  thought 
which  can  dissolve  the  stubborn  maxim  of  Leibnitz,  that  intelligence 
in  its  very  essence  contains  a  something  which  does  not  come  from 
without,  namely,  the  intellect  itself.  The  distinction  of  subject  and 
object  goes  down  to  the  very  origin  of  knowledge  alike  in  the  race  and 
in  the  individual.  There  must  always  be  the  subject  knowing  as  well 
as  the  object  known,  and  the  subject  knowing  must  be  a  being  consti- 
tuted with  the  capacity  of  knowing.  No  theory  of  evolution  can  carry 
us  beyond  and  posit  us  antecedent  to  this  law ;  because  it  is  of  the 
essence  of  thought  and  conditions  the  very  thinking  which  constructs 
the  theory  of  evolution. 

Scientists   properly   insist   on   verifying   theory  by  observed   facts. 


WHAT  IS  KNOWN  THROUGH  RATIONAL  INTUITION.         141 

They  write,  however,  as  if  unconsciously  they  supposed  the  mind  could 
in  some  way  observe  the  thing  in  itself  and  compare  its  own  know- 
ledge with  it.  But  in  truth  this  verification  is  only  the  comparison  of 
our  knowledge  of  the  object  through  one  sense  writh  our  knowledge  of 
it  through  another  or  through  inferences  from  what  we  know  in  any 
way  about  it  or  other  objects.  Thus  completely  is  the  knowledge  of  an 
object  the  act  of  an  intelligent  subject.  What  sort  of  reasoning  is  it 
which  concludes  that  something  once  existed  utterly  unknown  now  to 
any  being,  and  of  which  we  of  course  can  form  no  conception,  except 
only  that  it  was  not  intelligent  nor  endowed  with  the  properties  and 
powers  which  constitute  intelligence,  and  that  some  part  of  this  some- 
thing, acting  on  another  part  of  this  something,  (if  indeed,  being  utterly 
unknown,  it  could  have  parts  or  be  a  whole)  created  in  the  object  on 
which  it  acted  a  rational  constitution  and  gradually  developed  it  to  in- 
telligence ? 

Therefore  the  evolutionist  who  holds  with  the  rationalist  that  the 
regulative  principles  of  thought  are  valid  and  are  a  priori  to  the  indi- 
vidual, but  that  they  originated  in  the  influence  of  nature  on  man  in 
the  evolution  of  the  race,  must  also  admit  that  they  existed  germinal 
in  the  constitution  of  the  primitive  man  and  so  conditioned  the  evolu- 
tion itself.  And  here  again  he  agrees  with  the  rationalist,  although  he 
recognizes  the  babyhood  of  the  race  instead  of  the  individual,  and 
thus  makes  immeasurably  longer  the  period  within  which  the  principles 
reveal  themselves  in  consciousness  by  occasion  of  experience  and  man 
attains  maturity. 

If  this  reasoning  is  correct  it  is  impossible  to  account  for  the  origin  of 
man's  higher  rational  or  spiritual  powers  by  mere  evolution.  And  the 
same  impossibility  appears  from  all  other  points  of  view  from  which  we 
study  these  higher  powers  of  man.  Hence  eminent  scientists  who  favor 
evolution  within  certain  limits  are  compelled  to  deny  that  it  of  itself 
can  account  for  the  origin  of  these  spiritual  powers. 

5.  But  it  is  urged  that  evolution  reaches  back  of  the  primitive  man 
and  that  vital  organisms  were  developed  from  inorganic  matter.    There 
are  two  objections  to  this: — one,  that  confessedly  motion  cannot  be 
identified  with  thought;   the  other,  that  confessedly  all  experiments 
have  failed  to  discover  a  single  instance  of  such  development  of  life.    A 
theory  can  hardly  be  called  scientific  which  supposes  an  inconceivable 
identification  established  by  an  utter  absence  of  facts.  But  waiving  this, 
if  reason  is  developed  primarily  from  the  inorganic,  then  a  rational  con- 
stitution must  have  existed  in  the  original  matter.     The  necessity  is  the 
same  here  as  in  the  case  of  the  primitive  man,  or  in  the  case  of  develop- 
ment by  association  of  ideas  within  the  experience  of  the  individual. 

6.  The  skeptic  objects  that  the  laws  of  thought  are  in  a  constant  flux 


142  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

in  the  process  of  evolution,  and  however  necessary  it  may  be  to  think 
according  to  them,  they  give  no  standard  of  truth.  Noire,-  in  direct 
contradiction  to  his  own  teachings  already  quoted,  affirms  this :  "  Our 
reason  thus  developed  is  not  the  measure  or  standard  of  the  past  or 
future,  but  only  the  transient  measure  of  to-day."  *  But  this  cannot 
be  so  unless  nature  itself  changes  and  so  makes  diverse  impressions  on 
different  generations ;  and  the  whole  theory  rests  on  the  supposition  that 
the  impressions  of  nature  are  continuously  the  same.  And  it  cannot  be 
so,  again,  because  if  it  is  reason  that  is  developed  or  evolved,  then  reason 
must  previously  have  existed  at  least  in  its  constituent  elements  in  the 
primitive  constitution  of  man,  conditioning  his  development  and  deter- 
mining its  direction.  Whatever  is  developed  or  evolved  must  have 
existed  previously  to  its  development.  It  can  hardly  be  said  that 
skeptics  deny  this.  They  rather  ignore  it,  seeming  to  be  utterly  un- 
aware that  any  question  as  to  what  the  evolution  of  reason  must  pre- 
suppose was  ever  asked  or  needed  to  be  asked.  Skepticism,  however, 
usually  exists  in  the  mind  of  the  skeptic  antecedent  to  any  theory  which 
he  uses  as  its  vehicle.  Whether  his  theory  is  positivism,  or  the  associa- 
tion of  ideas  in  individuals,  or  evolution,  each  serves  his  purpose  for 
the  time  being,  and  each  in  its  turn  is  defended  with  equal  confidence. 
The  theory  is  not  the  cause  but  the  symptom  of  the  disease. 

IX.  The  objection  against  the  validity  of  rational  intuitions  recurs  in 
another  form :  —  Though  men  have  these  beliefs  and  necessarily  think 
under  their  regulation,  and  whatever  be  the  account  given  of  their 
origin,  they  are,  nevertheless,  entirely  subjective  and  illusive.  They 
may  be  necessary  beliefs  to  me ;  but  to  other  minds  the  very  contrary 
may  be  equally  necessary  beliefs.  To  this  the  following  answers  are 
pertinent  and  decisive : 

1.  This  objection  is  merely  a  specific  application  of  the  theory  of  the 
relativity  of  knowledge,  already  refuted.     Thus  the  objector  can  give 
no  reasons  for  his  belief,  while  there  are  the  strongest  possible  reasons 
against  it.     I  might  here  dismiss  the  objection.     But  there  are  some 
considerations  pertinent  to  this  special  application  of  it  which  require 
attention. 

2.  The  objection  is  incompatible  with  the  theory  last  considered, 
which  accounts  for  the  rational  intuitions  as  resulting  from  the  expe- 
rience of  the  race  in  which  the  impressions  of  nature  through  innumer- 
able generations  have  registered  themselves  in  the  human  organization, 
and  reveal  themselves  to  the  individual  in  constitutional  a  priori  prin- 
ciples intuitively  known.     This  theory  is  incompatible  with  every  form 
of  the  relativity  of  knowledge. 

*  Pp.  182, 183. 


WHAT  IS  KNOWN  THROUGH  RATIOXAM  ItlttBjE  R  Si!  T  Y 


3.  If  the  necessary  beliefs  regulating  a  man's  tm 
beliefs  or  prejudices  which  have  arisen  from  accidental 

ideas  in  his  own  private  experience,  then  his  knowledge  consists  only  of 
impressions  within  his  own  subjectivity,  while  other  persons,  through 
different  associations,  may  with  equal  necessity  think  the  contrary ;  he 
has  no  warrant  even  for  impressions  beyond  what  he  has  himself  ob- 
served ;  and  these  impressions  themselves  can  never  be  united  in  any 
logical  or  rational  unity.  Real  knowledge  is  thus  impossible.  This  is 
strikingly  illustrated  in  Protagoras,  who  is  said  to  have  been  the  first 
to  develop  philosophy,  not  from  the  object,  external  nature,  but  from 
the  subject,  man.  Man,  however,  he  regarded  as  having  knowledge 
only  through  the  senses,  and  his  philosophy  restecl  on  the  individual 
and  particular,  to  the  exclusion  of  the  universal.  His  first  principle 
was,  "  Man  is  the  measure  of  all  things."  He  meant  an  individual 
man,  not  the  collective  reason  of  mankind.  His  second  principle  ne- 
cessarily followed,  "  Contradictory  assertions  are  equally  true."  For 
since  every  individual  is  the  measure  of  all  things,  the  same  proposition 
"may  be  at  the  same  time  true  to  one  and  its  contradictory  true  to 
another ;  and  since  the  individual  is  the  subject  only  of  changing  sensa- 
tions, a  proposition  may  be  true  to  him  to-day  and  its  contradictory 
true  of  the  same  thing  to-morrowT,  according  to  the  impression  it  makes 
on  him.  The  principles  of  Protagoras  are  carried  to  their  logical  result 
by  Moleschott,  in  the  Kreislauf  des  Lebens,  when  he  says,  "  Except  in 
relation  to  the  eye  into  which  it  sends  its  rays,  the  tree  has  no  exist- 
ence. It  is  solely  by  this  relation  that  the  tree  is  in  itself."  Here  is  a 
sort  of  sense-idealism ;  the  object  exists  only  in  the  impression  it  makes 
on  the  sensorium  of  an  observer ;  so  soon  as  it  ceases  to  be  observed  it 
ceases  to  exist.  We  have  then  as  many  universes  as  there  are  observers, 
and  whenever  a  man  dies  or  even  goes  to  sleep,  a  universe  is  annihilated. 
And  the  same  is  true  of  every  brute ;  for  Moleschott  in  this  connection 
illustrates  his  meaning  from  the  rotifer  and  the  spider,  and  says,  "  The 
observer  may  be  an  insect,  a  man,  or,  if  there  are  such  things,  an 
angel."  We  thus  exemplify  the  necessity  of  the  conclusion  demonstrated 
by  Hume,  that,  if  man's  knoAvledge  is  limited  to  the  impressions  made 
on  him  within  his  own  individual  experience,  not  only  rational  science 
but  all  knowledge  is  impossible. 

4.  Reason  is  everywhere  and  always  the  same  in  kind.     Otherwise 
we  must  fall  back  into  subjective  idealism ;  knowledge  cannot  escape 
from  the  limits  of  the  individual  consciousness ;  a  proposition  may  be 
necessarily  true  to  one  being  and  its  contradictory  necessarily  true  to 
another ;  and  rational  intelligence  becomes  impossible.     Physical  science 
itself  assumes  this  universal  sameness  of  reason  and,  if  true  as  science, 
proves  it.     The  laws  which  it  enunciates  are  laws  in  the  remotest  nebula 


144  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

as  really  as  on  earth.  The  crowded  skies  may  contain  intelligent  beings 
widely  different  from  us  and  susceptible  perhaps  of  impressions  widely 
different  from  our  own ;  yet  the  laws  of  nature,  if  they  have  attained  a 
scientific  knowledge  of  them,  must  be  the  same  to  them  as  to  us,  else  all 
our  physical  science  is  no  better  than  a  fairy  tale ;  and  the  principles  of 
reason  must  be  the  same  to  them  as  to  us,  else  all  our  ratiocination  is 
mere  babbling ;  and  the  supreme  reason  must  be  the  same  to  them  as  to 
us,  else  reason  is  not  supreme  and  the  ultimate  ground  of  the  universe 
is  not  reason. 

Thus  it  is  essential  to  the  existence  of  rationality  and  to  the  possi- 
bility of  knowledge  that  the  universal  principles  of  rational  intuition  be 
objectively  real  as  the  constituent  elements  of  Keason  everywhere  and 
always  the  same  in  kind.  The  objection  that  they  are  only  subjective 
and  therefore  illusive  involves  the  impossibility  of  knowledge. 

X.  The  validity  of  these  principles  as  real  knowledge  involves  the 
existence  of  a  supreme  reason  in  which  they  are  essential,  eternal  and 
supreme.  It  is  essential  to  the  possibility  of  rational  intelligence  that 
the  principles  and  norms  which  are  constituent  and  essential  in  the" 
reason  of  man,  be  also  constituent  and  essential  in  Reason  that  is  eter- 
nal, unchanging,  supreme  and  universally  regulative. 

1.  Truth  has  no  significance  except  as  some  mind  is  its  subject;  for 
truth  is  the  intellectual  equivalent  of  reality.  There  can  be  no  truth  or 
law  without  a  mind,  as  there  can  be  no  perception  without  a  percipient 
and  no  thought  without  a  thinker.  We  only  delude  ourselves  by 
hypostasizing  either  perceptions,  or  thoughts,  or  truths,  as  if  they  were 
substantial  beings.  Truths  do  not  float  loose  about  the  universe,  inde- 
pendent of  mind.  But  in  the  development  of  man's  rational  constitution 
he  finds  himself  having  knowledge  of  truths  which  are  universal  and 
regulative  of  all  his  thinking,  which  transcend  his  experience  and  condi- 
tion all  the  reality  which  comes  under  his  observation.  There  must  be 
a  supreme  Reason  that  is  the  subject  and  source  of  these  truths,  and  in 
that  Reason  they  must  be  the  eternal  and  archetypal  principles  of  all 
that  begins  to  be. 

The  universe  is  not  abstract  but  concrete.  Knowledge  is  correlative 
to  being.  Abstraction  is  a  process  of  our  own  minds  separating  in 
thought  what  is  never  separated  in  fact.  It  is  possible  in  thought  to 
abstract  an  action  from  the  agent,  a  thought  from  the  thinker,  a  truth 
or  law  from  the  personal  reason,  but  they  cannot  be  separated  in 
reality.  If  what  we  necessarily  regard  as  universal  truths  and  laws 
regulating  all  thought  and  power  and  thus  the  basis  of  the  possibility 
of  science,  are  not  eternal  in  the  Supreme  Reason,  then  they  are  not 
universal  truths  and  laws,  but  are  subjective  and  transitory  impressions 
in  the  sense-intelligence  of  a  man,  and  knowledge  is  impossible. 


WHAT  IS   KNOWN  THROUGH  RATIONAL  INTUITION.         145 

2.  These  principles  cannot  be  peculiar  to  an  individual.     I  know 
that  they  are  not  mine ;  I  have  not  created  them ;  I  cannot  change 
them  nor  set  them  aside.     They  must  be  principles  of  a  reason  above 
and  beyond  me,  a  reason  that  is  eternal,  universal  and  supreme.     Nor 
can  they  have  originated  in  the  evolution  of  the  human  race.     If  they 
were   brought    into    human    consciousness   by  the   evolution   of    the 
primitive    man    through    many   generations,   yet   even    while    lying 
germinal  and  unconscious  in  his  undeveloped  constitution,  they  regu- 
late man's  development  itself  and  direct  it  in  its  long  progress  to  con- 
scious rationality  ;  they  also  regulate  the  corresponding  development  of 
nature   in   accordance  with   rational   laws  and  to  the  realization  of 
rational  principles  and  ends.     They  cannot,  therefore,  have  originated 
with  man,  either  the  individual  or-  the  race,  but  must  have  existed 
before  the  evolution  began,  in  a  reason  that  is  universal  and  supreme. 

3.  These  truths,  therefore,  have  reality  only  as  they  are  truths  of 
Reason  absolute,  all-ruling,  and  every  where  and  always  the  same. 
Since  they  are  universal  principles,  having  objective  reality,  originating 
in  no  finite  mind,  they  must  be  eternally  real  in  a  Reason  that  is 
eternal,  absolute  and  supreme. 

4.  Reason  in  man  must  be  essentially  the  same  in  kind  with  the 
Reason  that  is  supreme.     For  we  have  seen  that  Reason,  if  it  is  Reason 
at  all,  must  be  the  same  every  where  and  always  ;  and  so  must  be  the 
same  in  man  and  in  God.     The  truths  which  regulate  all  thought  and 
are  law  to  all  action  must  be  universally  true  or  they  are  never  true ; 
they  must  be  eternal  in  Reason  that  is  absolute  and  supreme,  otherwise 
thought  can  never  attain  to  truth  nor  action  to  righteousness. 

This  is  a  prerequisite  to  all  communion  with  God.  J.  F.  Ferrier 
says,  "This  postulation  is  the  foundation  and  essence  of  religion. 
Destroy  it  and  you  destroy  the  possibility  of  religion."  *  For  if  intel- 
ligence and  moral  law  and  moral  perfection  and  worth  are  to  God 
different  from  what  they  are  to  man,  there  can  be  no  communication 
between  man  and  God ;  there  can  be  no  knowledge  of  God,  no  love  to 
him,  no  trust  in  him. 

This  postulation  is  equally  necessary  to  the  possibility  of  knowing 
anything.  For  if  there  is  no  supreme  and  eternal  reason  essentially 
the  same  with  human  reason,  knowledge  is  disintegrated  into  the  sub- 
jective impressions  of  individuals,  of  which  each  individual  necessarily 
believes  his  own,  but  which  have  no  common  standard  of  truth  and,  in 
different  individuals,  may  be  contradictory  to  one  another.  Therefore 
what  are  fundamental  realities  and  ideas  of  reason  to  man,  are  funda1 
mental  ideas  and  realities  to  God ;  these  at  least  are  so,  whatever,  not 

*  Lectures  on  Greek    Philosophy,  Edinburgh,  1866,  page  13  ;    quoted    Brinton, 
Religious  Sentiment,  page  97. 

10 


146  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

contradicting  them,  God  may  know  which  we  as  yet  do  not  know. 
For  let  us  make  the  supposition  that  what  is  universal  truth  to  us  may 
be  absurd  to  God,  that  what  is  right,  perfect  or  beautiful,  what  is  the 
good  that  has  true  worth  to  us,  is  wrong,  imperfect  or  ugly,  evil  or 
unworthy  to  him,  or  vice  versa;  then  the  foundation  is  torn  from 
beneath  the  whole  fabric  of  knowledge,  and  it  topples  down,  not  into 
any  ruin  conceivable  by  us  and  still  under  the  reign  of  law  accordant 
with  which  the  fabric  fell  and  may  be  rebuilt,  but  into  a  chaos  in 
which  there  is  no  distinction  between  the  true  and  the  absurd,  the 
right  and  the  wrong,  the  perfect  and  the  imperfect,  the  good  and  the 
evil,  a  chaos  in  which  rationality  would  no  longer  exist  either  in  man 
or  God,  and  which  is  utterly  unthinkable  to  every  human  mind.  The 
postulation  that  reason  is  everywhere  the  same  in  kind,  and  is  the  same 
in  man  as  in  God,  is  the  necessary  basis  of  the  possibility  of  religion, 
of  morals  and  of  rational  intelligence. 

This  postulation  is  also  involved  in  the  very  fact  that  man  is  a  per- 
sonal being.  If  there  is  no  personal  being  who  is  the  absolute  and 
supreme  Reason,  then  man  himself  is  not  a  person.  His  knowledge  of 
himself  as  a  rational  person  rises  clear  in  his  self-consciousness,  ante- 
cedent to  his  distinct  apprehension  of  Reason  above  him  and  supreme. 
But  his  existence  as  a  rational  person  is  dependent  and  conditioned  on 
the  existence  of  the  Absolute  Reason.  As  his  consciousness  is  de- 
veloped and  he  apprehends  it  in  thought,  he  finds  in  it  the  consciousness 
of  eternal  and  universal  truths  and  laws  which  he  himself  did  not 
originate  and  in  the  knowledge  of  which  he  finds  himself  face  to 
face  with  Reason  absolute  and  supreme.  This  consciousness  of  self, 
as  it  is  developed,  reveals  in  its  background  the  consciousness  of 
God.  ' 

Lotze  says :  "  The  finite  works  everywhere  with  powers  which  it  has 
not  given  to  itself  and  according  to  laws  which  it  has  not  established, 
and  thus  by  means  of  a  spiritual  power  which  is  realized  not  in  itself 
alone.  Hence  in  reflection  on  itself  that  being  seems  to  perceive  in 
itself  a  dimly  discerned  substance,  something  which  is  in  the  Ego  but 
which  is  not  the  Ego  itself,  and  on  which  as  its  foundation  the  personal 
development  rests."  * 

5.  Christian  theism  explains  and  confirms  this  postulation  by  the 
truth  that  man  is  in  the  image  of  God.  This  means  that  personality  in 
man  is  essentially  the  same  with  personality  in  God.  If  so,  then  in 
knowing  his  own  reason  he  knows  the  image  of  the  supreme  reason, 
God  ;  and  thus  in  knowing  the  primitive  truths  of  rational  intuition,  he 
knows  truths  eternal,  unchangeable  and  universal  in  God  the  supreme 

*  Mikrokosmus,  Vol.  iii.  p.  573. 


WHAT   IS   KNOWN   THROUGH  NATIONAL  INTUITION.         147 

Reason.  Says  Frances  Power  Cobbe,  "  Our  intuition  is  God's  tuition."  * 
Baden  Powell  says :  "  All  science  is  but  the  partial  reflection  of  the 
reason  of  man  in  the  great,  all-pervading  reason  of  the  universe.  And 
thus  the  unity  of  science  is  the  reflection  of  the  unity  of  nature  and  of 
that  unity  of  the  supreme  reason  and  intelligence  which  pervades  and 
rules  over  all  nature  and  whence  our  reason  and  science  are  derived." 

6.  Here  arises  the  objection  that  in  thinking  that  Reason  in  God  is 
essentially  the  same  in  kind  with  Reason  in  man,  our  belief  is  anthro- 
pomorphic, and  not  real  knowledge.  In  the  face  of  this  objection 
teachers  of  religion  fear  to  acknowledge  that  man  is  in  the  image  of 
God  and  that  Reason  is  everywhere  and  always  essentially  the  same, 
lest  they  should  fall  into  anthropomorphism ;  to  escape  anthropomor- 
phism they  sometimes  concede  that  we  have  no  knowledge  of  God,  but 
only  a  faith  founded  not  in  reason  but  in  feeling ;  and  at  last  find  them- 
selves forced  upon  the  logical  consequence  that  God  is  beyond  the  range 
of  human  intelligence  and  to  man  must  ever  remain  unknown.  They 
do  not  consider  that  the  objection  is  equally  fatal  to  all  knowledge.  If 
the  knowledge  of  God  is  anthropomorphic,  all  science  is  equally  so. 
What  does  the  scientist  find  in  nature  but  its  conformity  with  the  prin- 
ciples and  laws  of  human  intelligence,  and  what  is  science  but  the 
statement  of  this  conformity?  If  man  knows  anything,  his  knowledge 
must  be  human  knowledge ;  and  knowledge  that  is  human  must  be  an-" 
thropomorphic.  The  objection  is  nothing  but  the  doctrine  of  the  rela- 
tivity of  knowledge  presented  in  a  peculiar  form ;  it  is  the  objection 
that  human  knowledge  is  not  real  because  it  is  knowledge  through  the 
human  faculties.  This,  as  I  have  shown,  is  simply  the  absurdity  that 
knowledge  is  impossible  because  there  is  a  mind  that  knows.  It  is 
equally  pertinent  against  knowledge  by  any  mind,  human,  angelic  or 
divine.  It  implies  that  knowledge  is  possible  only  to  a  being  which  is 
not  endowed  with  reason  and  which  knows  without  any  power  of 
knowing. 

There  must  be  ultimate  and  universal  truths.  If  the  law  of  the 
persistence  of  force  is  not  true  in  the  remotest  nebula,  it  is  not  true 
here ;  if  it  will  not  be  true  ten  or  ten  million  years  hence,  it  is  not  true 
now.  If  the  principles  and  laws  which  regulate  human  intelligence  are 
not  true  in  Mars  and  Sirius,  all  our  astronomy  is  invalidated.  All 
truth  must  rest  immediately  or  remotely  on  truth  that  is  eternal.  The 
capacity  of  knowing  some  truth  that  is  eternal  and  universal,  is  a  pre- 
requisite for  the  capacity  of  rational  intelligence.  The  fact  that  this 
knowledge  is  anthropomorphic  does  not  prove  it  false ;  it  only  proves 
that  man's  knowledge  has  the  essential  characteristic  of  true  knowledge  ; 

*  Intuitive  Morals,  p.  22. 


148  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL   BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

that  man's  reason  acts  in  the  light  of  truths  which  eternally  enlighten 
the  Reason  that  is  absolute  and  supreme. 

We  say,  therefore,  with  F.  H.  Jacobi :  "  In  creating  man  God  theo- 
morphized ;  therefore  necessarily  man  anthropomorphizes.  What  makes 
man  to  be  man,  that  is,  the  image  of  God,  is  Reason.  This  begins  with 
the  '  I  am.'  Where  this  word  resounds  within,  expressing  the  inmost 
being,  there  is  Reason,  there  is  Personality,  there  is  Freedom.  .  .  . 
Accordingly  we  confess  to  the  conviction  that  man  bears  in  him  the 
image  of  God — inevitable  anthropomorphism — and  we  affirm  that  with- 
out this  anthropomorphism,  hitherto  called  Theism,  there  is  only  either 
atheism  or  fetichism."  * 

It  would  be  a  fatally  misleading  anthropomorphism  to  ascribe  to 
God  the  limitations  of  man,  his  bodily  form  and  constitution,  or  the 
qualities  of  his  natural  life.  But  it  is  sophistry  to  argue  from  this  that 
personality  in  its  essence  is  not  the  same  in  man  and  in  God ;  and  the 
latter  error  is  as  deadly  as  the  former. 

7.  To  the  doctrine  that  the  principles  which  regulate  man's  thinking 
originate  in  the  intuition  of  reason  and  are  valid  for  all  thinking  beings, 
Lange  objects :  This  "  view,  which  is  peculiar  to  the  true  original  He- 
gelianism,  leads  necessarily  to  Pantheism ;  for  it  already  presupposes 
as  an  axiom  the  unity  of  the  human  spirit  with  the  spirit  of  the  uni- 
verse and  with  all  spirits."  f  This  has  been  a  common  error  of  German 
metaphysics.  But  Theism  corrects  it.  The  unity  of  spirits  is  not  the 
pantheistic  identity  of  substance,  but  the  unity  of  persons  under  the 
universal  truths  and  laws  of  one  rational  and  moral  system. 

The  universal  reason  is  not  submerged  unconscious  in  nature,  but 
energizes  in  the  personal  God,  and  expresses  its  truths,  laws  and  ideals 
in  the  constitution  of  the  universe.  Man  is  constituted  rational.  As 
in  contact  with  external  nature  his  reason  is  developed,  he  finds  in  him- 
self the  principles  of  universal  reason  ;  he  recognizes  them  as  laws  of 
thought  and  action,  constructs  ideals  in  accordance  with  them,  and  by 
them  discriminates  between  good  as  worthy  and  evil  as  worthless.  He 
finds  them  also  regulating  nature.  He  recognizes  the  universe  as  con- 
tinuously expressing  the  archetypal  thoughts  of  the  supreme  reason. 
Thus  only  can  he  comprehend  the  cosmos  in  the  unity  of  a  system  and 
describe  it  in  science.  Without  the  theistic  recognition  of  the  su- 
premacy of  reason  all  science  disappears,  either  disintegrated  into 
individual  impressions  void  of  real  knowledge,  or  attenuated  into  an 
abstract  and  unreal  universal ; 

"Philosophy,  that  leaned  on  heaven  before, 
Sinks  to  her  second  cause  and  is  no  more." 

*  Gottlichen  Dingen ;  Werke,  Vol.  iii.  pp.  418,  422,  423. 
t  Geschichte  des  Materialismus,  B.  ii.,  Sect.  i.  chap.  ii. 


WHAT  IS  KNOWN  THROUGH  RATIONAL  INTUITION.         149 

Thus  knowing  God,  man  by  faith  and  love   comes  into  a  moral  unity 
with  Him  and  with  all  rational  beings. 

XL  The  discussion  proves  that  the  intuitions  of  reason  are  real 
knowledge  and  that .  the  only  reasonable  explanation  of  them  is  that 
they  are  constituent  elements  of  Reason  and  reveal  Reason  eternal, 
absolute  and  supreme,  and  that  Reason,  everywhere  and  always,  in  God 
and  man,  is  essentially  the  same. 

In  the  acknowledged  failure  of  Comte's  Positivism  and  of  Mill's 
theory  of  association,  and  in  the  evident  inadequacy  of  the  explana- 
tion of  the  evolutionist,  the  resources  of  empiricism  are  exhausted  and 
we  fall  back  on  the  Reason  as  the  only  and  complete  explanation. 
The  rational  intuitions  exist  as  norms  in  the  rational  constitution  of 
man ;  as  his  constitution  is  developed,  they  reveal  themselves  in  con- 
sciousness on  occasion  in  experience,  as  universal  regulative  principles ; 
and  in  their  revelation  of  man  to  himself  as  personal  Reason,  they  re- 
veal to  him  the  supreme  and  absolute  Reason  as  the  personal  God, 
conditioning  his  own  personal  existence,  and  without  whom  his  own 
rational  intelligence  would  be  impossible.  The  discussion  proves  that 
all  who  would  not  deny  the  reality  of  all  knowledge  must  recognize 
the  rational  intuitions  as  real  knowledge,  whatever  theory  of  their 
origin  may  be  adopted.  They  are  regulative  not  only  of  all  thinking 
but  also  in  the  constitution  of  nature.  By  them  we  are  able  to  appre- 
hend the  Cosmos  as  a  realm  of  ideas  and  laws,  and  to  construct  science 
which  is  its  intellectual  equivalent.  Says  Prof.  John  Fiske :  "  So  long 
as  individual  experience  is  studied  without  reference  to  ancestral  expe- 
rience, the  follower  of  Kant  can  always  hold  his  ground  against  Locke 
in  ethics  as  well  as  in  psychology."  *  This  admits  the  reality  of  the 
principles  independent  of  the  theory  by  which  they  are  accounted  for, 
and  the  sufficiency  of  the  rationalistic  explanations  aside  from  the 
theory  of  ancestral  experience. 

The  objective  validity  of  something  in  the  constitution  of  the  human 
mind  corresponding  to  rational  intuition  Hume  himself  seems  to  admit : 
"  As  nature  has  taught  us  the  use  of  our  limbs  without  giving  us  the 
knowledge  of  the  muscles  and  nerves  by  which  they  are  actuated,  so 
she  has  implanted  in  us  an  instinct  which  carries  forward  the  thought 
in  a  correspondent  course  to  that  which  she  has  established  among 
external  objects,  though  we  are  ignorant  of  those  powers  and  forces  on 
which  this  regular  course  and  succession  depends."  f  We  must  as^, 
Who  is  the  Nature  that  teaches  us  ?  And  have  we  not  here  an  uncon- 
scious acknowledgment  of  the  supremacy  and  ubiquity  of  Reason,  which 
our  rational  intuitions  reveal  ? 

^Outlines  of  Co>mic  Philosophy,  Vol.  ii.  p.  326. 

f  Inquiry  Concerning  the  Human  Understanding,  sect.  II.,  sub  finem. 


150  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

Mr.  Frederick  Harrison  says  man  is  "the  being  which  is  the  real 
discoverer  and  author  of  law.  .  .  .  Laws  of  nature  are  not  so  much 
the  expression  of  absolute  realities  in  the  nature  of  things  (of  this  we 
know  nothing  absolutely),  but  they  are  those  relations  which  the  human 
intellect  has  perceived  in  co-ordinate  phenomena  of  all  kinds.  .  .  .  The 
whole  sphere  of  law  is  nothing  but  the  outcome  of  the  human  intelli- 
gence applied  to  the  world  of  phenomena."  *  But  "  the  great  Human 
Being,"  in  whose  "  Human  Providence "  Mr.  Harrison  finds  "  both  law 
and  author  and  minister  of  law,"  certainly  did  not  of  its  own  mind  and 
will  arrange  nature  according  to  these  laws ;  on  the  contrary,  it  finds  the 
world  arranged  according  to  them.  This,  positivists  like  Mr.  Harrison 
would  be  obliged  to  admit.  Then,  we  necessarily  ask,  how  came  the  world 
to  be  arranged  according  to  these  laws,  and  how  came  the  Human  Being 
to  know  them?  The  Positivist  arbitrarily  rules  this  question  out  as 
illegitimate.  Yet  it  is  a  question  which  man  has  always  asked ;  and  the 
recognition  of  a  cause  beyond  man  is  as  necessary  in  "  the  great  Human 
Being,"  and  has  been  historically  as  constant  and  universal,  as  the  laws 
which  Mr.  Harrison  so  freely  recognizes.  If  the  laws  which  man  finds 
in  the  world  have  no  objective  reality,  then  it  must  be  equally  true  that 
the  world  has  no  objective  reality.  Then  human  knowledge  ceases,  and 
"  the  great  Human  Being,"  forever  cheating  itself  with  illusions,  is  not 
the  Being  on  whom  man  can  rest  in  peace  as  the  supreme  object  of 
trust  and  worship.  And  again  we  see  that  if  man  has  any  real  know- 
ledge, the  principles  and  lawrs  which  are  regulative  alike  of  nature  and 
of  his  owrn  thought,  must  be  principles  and  laws  in  an  absolute  Reason, 
the  ultimate  ground  alike  of  nature  with  its  laws  and  of  man  with  his 
rational  intelligence,  and  that  Reason  everywhere  and  always,  in  God 
and  man,  is  the  same. 

XII.  The  possibility  of  science,  and  indeed  of  any  knowledge,  more 
than  the  sense  of  isolated  impressions  on  a  sensorium,  rests  on  the  fol- 
lowing realities : — 

Through  rational  intuition  man  has  real  knowledge  of  universal, 
regulative  principles,  and  in  knowing  them  has  knowledge  of  himself  as 
Reason. 

Supreme  in  the  Universe  is  Reason  essentially  like  our  own,  and, 
however  transcending,  never  contradicting  the  Reason  of  man ;  and 
Reason  is  everywhere  and  always  the  same.  - 

The  principles  of  Reason  are  universally  regulative  of  thought  and 
efficient  power,  in  the  sense  that  the  absurd  can  never  be  made  real. 

These  realities  are  the  conditions  of  the  possibility  of  science.  Be- 
cause man  is  Reason,  and  because  the  universe  is  accordant  with 

*  The  Creeds  Old  and  New,  Nineteenth  Century,  Nqvember,  1880. 


WHAT  IS   KNOWN  THROUGH  RATIONAL  INTUITION.         151 

rational  principles  and  laws  and  progressively  realizes  rational  ideals 
and  good,  and  because  it  thus  expresses  the  archetypal  thoughts  of  the 
supreme  Reason,  it  can  be  apprehended  and  systemized  in  science  by 
the  rational  intelligence  of  man. 

XIII.  Atheism  must  rest  on  some  theory  which  logically  involves 
the  impossibility  of  knowledge.  This  is  a  necessary  inference  from  the 
positions  already  established.  It  is  also  verified  by  the  history  of  all 
atheism  which  attempts  to  vindicate  itself  to  rational  intelligence.  If 
it  is  impossible  to  know  God,  it  is  impossible  to  know  anything  scienti- 
fically in  the  unity  of  a  rational  system. 


CHAPTER  VI. 
THE  ULTIMATE  KEALITIES  OF  HUMAN  KNOWLEDGE. 


826.    Definition. 

BY  ultimate  realities  I  mean  the  ultimate  kinds  or  genera  of  reality 
which  are  known  in  intuition  and  designated  by  a  common  name,  and 
are  the  objects  of  human  thought.  It  is  conceivable  that  all  the  ele- 
mental realities  known  in  intuition  may  be  ascertained  and  named.  If 
this  should  be  done  we  should  have  before  us  and  know  by  name  all 
the  ultimate  genera  or  kinds  of  reality  of  which  it  is  possible  to  have 
knowledge.  We  may  call  them  for  short  the  ultimate  or  fundamental 
realities,  and  our  ideas  of  them  the  ultimate  or  fundamental  ideas  of 
knowledge. 

Aristotle  attempted  a  classification  of  the  ultimate  genera  of  reality, 
and  called  them  Categories.  Kant,  however,  has  used  this  word  to 
denote  the  Root-notions  (Stammbegriffe)  of  the  understanding,  the  pure 
forms  of  thought  given  by  the  mind  itself.  Since  his  day  the  word  has 
retained  the  meaning  in  which  Kant  used  it.  Some  other  word,  there- 
fore, must  be  used  to  denote  the  ultimate  genera  of  reality. 

§  27.    Matter  and  Form. 

Kant  calls  the  particular  reality  known  in  perceptive  intuition  the 
"  matter  "  of  thought  or  knowledge ;  the  rational  truths  and  laws  which 
declare  its  relation  to  the  universal,  and  which  are  known  in  rational 
intuition,  he  called  the  "  forms  "  of  knowledge  or  thought.  It  has  been 
objected  that  the  latter,  as  "forms  of  thought,"  can  have  no  objective 
reality ;  and  it  has  come  to  pass  that  any  use  of  the  terms  matter  and 
forms  of  thought  at  once  awakens  the  suspicion  that  the  writer  using 
them  denies  the  reality  of  knowledge.  But  in  their  true  significance 
they  carry  in  them  no  suggestion  of  the  unreality  of  knowledge.  The 
"  matter  "  of  knowledge  is  the  particular  realities  known  in  presentative 
intuition ;  its  "  form  "  is  the  truth  and  laws  which  express  their  relation 
to  the  universal.  Sense-perception  and  self-consciousness  know  a  par. 
ticular  being  in  its  particular  modes  of  existence.  Reason  knows  the 
same  in  its  relations  to  the  universal.  The  "matter"  of  my  knowledge 
of  power  is  power  as  I  know  it  in  some  particular  exertion  of  it ;  its 
152 


THE  ULTIMATE  EEALITIES  OF  HUMAN   KNOWLEDGE.        153 

"form"  is  the  rational  principle  that  every  beginning  or  change  of  ex- 
istence must  have  a  cause.  The  "matter"  of  my  knowledge  of  space  is 
extension  in  its  three  dimensions ;  its  "  form,"  in  which  Reason  knows 
it,  is  the  metaphysical  principle  that  space  is  continuous,  immovable 
within  itself  and  unlimited,  and  the  mathematical  principles  of  geometry. 

When  this  true  conception  has  been  attained,  the  controversy  about 
the  "matter"  and  "form"  of  knowledge  passes  away,  and  with  it  the 
doubt  which  it  has  thrown  on  the  reality  of  knowledge.  The  necessary 
forms  of  thought  are  also  the  forms  of  things.  They  are  forms  of 
things  because  originally  and  eternally  they  are  archetypal  in  the 
supreme  Reason. 

Plato's  "  ideas  "  were  at  once  conceptions  of  the  mind  and  forms  or 
archetypes  of  things.  When  we  grasp  the  fact  that  in  intuition  we 
have  positive  knowledge  of  self  and  external  being  and  of  universal 
principles  of  reason,  we  necessarily  come  to  the  Platonic  position  that 
the  necessary  forms  of  thought  are  the  forms  of  things ;  we  grasp  in  its 
true  significance  the  principle  which  has  given  to  Platonism  its  peren- 
nial life,  that  the  truths  of  reason  are  at  once  the  laws  of  thought  and 
the  archetypal  norms  of  all  existence. 

It  is  the  error  of  Kant  that  space  and  time,  which  he  calls  forms  of 
sense,  and  reality,  substance,  cause,  existence  and  other  categories  of  the 
understanding,  are  pure  subjective  forms  of  thought,  which  the  mind 
must  necessarily  put  under  phenomena  in  apprehending  them.  But  we 
now  see  that  the  necessary  forms  of  thought  are  simply  the  universal 
norms  or  principles  of  reason ;  and  that  these  must  be  the  norms  or 
principles  regulative  not  of  thought  only,  but  of  all  existence ;  because, 
if  not  so,  reason  is  false  in  its  constituent  elements ;  what  we  have  taken 
for  reason,  the  organ  of  truth,  is  found  to  be  unreason  and  an  organ  of 
falsehood ;  and  rationality  and  knowledge  are  no  more. 

We  return  now  to  the  true  position.  Perceptive  intuition  is  the 
knowledge  of  some  particular  being  in  some  particular  mode  of  exist- 
ence. Rational  intuition  is  the  knowledge  of  the  rational  norms  of  all 
existence.  By  reason  we  know  the  particular  reality  as  related  to  truth 
that  is  universal,  necessary  and  unchanging,  and  through  this  to  Reason 
unconditioned  and  supreme. 

I  28.  Classification. 

The  Ultimate  Realities  are  of  two  classes,  distinguished  by  their 
origin  ;  each  of  these  classes  must  be  subdivided  into  two : — 

Class  I.  Ultimate  Realities  primarily  known  in  Presentative 
Intuition : 

1.  Being. 

2.  Modes  of  the  Existence  of  Being. 


154  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

Class  II.     Ultimate  Realities  primarily  known  in  Rational  Intuition  : 

1.  Norms  or  Standards  of  Reason:  —  The  True,  The  Right,  The 
Perfect  and  The  Good  ;  or  Truth,  Law,  Perfection  and  Good. 

2.  The  Absolute. 

I  mean  by  "  the  good  "  that  which  Reason  estimates  by  its  standards 
of  Truth,  Right  and  Perfection,  as  having  worth,  or  as  worthy  of  the 
pursuit,  possession  and  enjoyment  of  a  rational  being. 

The  Absolute  is  the  unconditioned  and  all-conditioning  Being,  on 
which  finite  beings  in  all  the  modes  of  their  existence  depend,  and  in 
which  the  norms  or  standards  of  Reason  are  eternal.  The  intuition  of 
Reason  that  Absolute  being  must  exist,  is  a  truth.  As  such  it  belongs 
with  the  True,  and  is,  like  every  other  necessary  truth,  a  law  of  thought 
and  a  norm  or  standard  of  judgment.  But  this  intuition  opens  to  us 
the  knowledge  of  the  Absolute  or  Unconditioned.  This  properly  stands 
by  itself  in  the  classification  as  the  last  of  all  the  ultimate  realities. 

Aristotle  classifies  the  genera  of  reality  in  ten  categories  ;  Being, 
Quantity,  Quality,  Relation,  Place,  Time,  Position,  Possession,  Action, 
Passion.*  This  is  evidently  incomplete  ;  and  the  same  may  be  said  of 
all  attempts  to  complete  it.  But  it  was  begun  on  the  right  principle. 
His  categories  are  not  logical  predicates  of  general  notions,  but  realities 
of  concrete  being.  The  ultimate  realities  are  not  found  by  the  methods 
of  abstract  thought  and  formal  logic,  but  by  those  of  concrete  or  real- 
istic thought  attending  to  concrete  beings.  Kant,  on  the  contrary, 
develops  his  categories  from  the  twelve  logical  functions  of  possible 
judgments,  and  proceeds  throughout  to  logical  products  rather  than  to 
concrete  realities.  The  result  is  a  grand  system  of  what  thought  must 
be,  empty  of  all  content  of  known  being. 

I  do  not  claim  that  the  classification  which  I  present  is  complete  and 
open  to  no  objection.  I  present  it  only  as  a  classification  which  I  have 
found  helpful  to  use  in  attempting  to  set  forth  the  reality,  extent  and 
limitations  of  human  knowledge. 

It  will  be  noticed  that,  according  to  this  classification,  knowledge 
begins  as  knowledge  of  particular  beings  in  their  several  modes  of 
existence,  proceeds  to  the  knowledge  of  them  in  their  relations  to  the 
universal  principles  of  reason,  and  issues  in  the  knowledge  of  absolute 
being  ;  this  is  the  order  of  knowing  and  thinking.  On  the  other  hand, 
in  the  order  of  dependence,  the  Absolute  Being  is  first,  as  the  ultimate 
ground  of  the  existence  of  all  particular  beings  and  of  the  possibility 
of  their  unity  as  a  universe.  In  the  Absolute  Being  all  truth,  law, 
perfection  and  worth  are  archetypal  and  eternal,  and  of  these  the  uni- 
verse of  finite  things  is  the  ever  progressive  expression  and  realization. 


*  'Owt'a,  Troaov,  notdv,  Trpof  ri,  TTOU,  nore,  KeiaOai,  £^eiv}  TTOI.ELV}  nda^eiv.     Topica  I. 
9.     Organon  I.    Kar^opiai. 


CHAPTER  VII. 


ULTIMATE  REALITIES  PRIMARILY  KNOWN  IN  PERCEPTIVE 

OR  PRESENTATIVE  INTUITION:    BEING  AND  ITS 

MODES  OF  EXISTENCE. 


229.    Being. 

I.  Being  is  known  immediately  in  presentative  intuition  and  can  be 
defined  or  described  only  by  referring  every  man  to  his  own  conscious- 
ness of  it. 

A  man  knows  being  in  his  consciousness  of  himself  as  existing.  The 
whole  idea  of  being  is  given  in  that  consciousness.  To  say  /  think,  is  the 
same  as  to  say,  It  is  I  who  think.  I  think,  I  act,  I  feel,  every  affirma- 
tion which  a  man  can  make  of  himself  carries  in  it  the  affirmation,  1 
am;  and,  without  the  /  am,  it  is  void  of  all  significance  and  reality. 
It  is  here  that  he  has  the  knowledge  of  being. 

We  also  have  knowledge  of  being  in  sense-perception.  In  one  and 
the  same  act  I  know  the  outward  object  and  myself.  And  of  each 
I  have  positive  knowledge.  I  know  myself  not  as  a  mere  negation  of 
the  outward  object  but  as  positively  known  being;  in  this  positive 
knowledge  I  affirm,  I  am.  I  know  my  own  being  in  all  its  fullness  of 
life,  intelligence  and  power.  I  know  the  outward  object,  not  merely 
negatively  as  not-me,  but  positively ;  my  own  body  posited  in  and  occu- 
pying space,  and  other  bodies  impinging  on  my  organism  or  resisting 
my  energy. 

Because  being  is  known  intuitively  it  cannot  be  defined,  but  can  be 
known  only  in  one's  own  consciousness  of  it.  We  know  that  a  thought, 
an  action,  a  feeling,  a  motion  is  not  a  being.  It  is  impossible  to  think 
these  as  beings.  We  refer  the  thought  to^  a  thinker,  the  action  to  an 
agent,  the  feeling  and  the  motion  to  a  being  that  feels  and  moves. 
But  we  cannot  define  what  a  beino-  is  :  we  know  what  it  is  in  the  con- 

O  " 

sciousness  of  self  and  the  perception  of  bodies. 

Having  attained  in  perceptive  intuition  the  idea  of  being,  we  group 
together  all  realities  known  as  beings,  whether  persons  or  things,  in  one 
class  and  call  them  beings.  And  this  is  the  first  of  the  ultimate  reali-* 
ties  known  in  perceptive  intuition. 

155 


156  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS   OF  THEISM. 

II.  Being,  as  known  in  perceptive  intuition,  is  a  particular  or  deter- 
minate being  existing  in  particular  properties  or  attributes. 

Being  ex-ists  (ex-sisto) ;  it  stands  out  in  view.  It  exists  or  stands  out 
to  our  knowledge  in  various  qualities  or  powers ;  also  as  one  or  many ; 
as  occupying  space  or  persisting,  in  time:  as  under  limitation;  and  as 
in  relation.  These  may  be  called  attributes  of  being  as  known  in  per- 
ceptive intuition ;  and,  since  in  these  the  being  ex-ists,  they  may  be 
called  modes  of  existence. 

III.  Being,  known  by  perceptive  intuition  as  existing  in  various 
modes,  is  known  by  the  Reason  in  rational  intuition  in  the  "  forms "  of 
its  universal  principles  and  laws  and  in  accordance  with  its  unchanging 
standards  or  norms. 

We  know  by  rational  intuition  that  every  quality,  attribute  or  phe- 
nomenon is  a  quality,  attribute  or  phenomenon  of  a  being.  There  can 
be  no  thought  without  a  thinker,  no  action  without  an  agent,  no  motion 
without  something  that  moves,  no  beginning  or  change  without  a  cause, 
no  phenomenon  without  a  being  that  appears  in  it  as  well  as  a  being 
to  whom  it  appears,  no  truth  without  a  mind  to  know  it. 

Conversely,  we  know  by  rational  intuition  that  every  being  exists  in 
some  attributes  or  properties.  And  this  is  only  saying  that  every  being 
ex-ists.  There  can  be  no  being  without  attributes ;  there  can  be  no 
being  without  power  of  some  kind ;  and  this  is  only  saying  there  cannot 
be  a  being  that  does  not  exist.  If  we  attempt  to  think  of  Being  without 
attributes,  a  substance  stripped  of  all  properties,  we  have  nothing  left. 
Not  only  is  nothing  left,  but  our  thought  issues  in  the  contradiction  that 
Being  is  the  same  with  Nothing.  A'nd  this  is  the  "  Thing  in  itself"  out 
of  all  relation  to  our  faculties.  It  is  not  an  unknowable  which  we  may 
some  time  come  to  know;  it  is  not  Nothing,  as  the  mere  denial  of 
being ;  it  is  the  symbol  of  a  hopeless  contradiction  at  the  root  of  all 
knowledge. 

Thus  we  know  being  in  its  deepest  reality  and  significance.  While 
perceptive  intuition  gives  us  particular  beings  existing  in  particular 
modes,  rational  intuition  shows  us  that  this  being  is  real  being  as  Reason 
knows  it  in  its  relations  to  the  universal.  Thought  cannot  pass  behind 
this  to  think  of  anything  more  real.  Beyond  being,  as  presentative  and 
rational  intuition  know  it,  is  nullity,  into  which  thought  cannot  enter 
nor  intuition  glance. 

IV.  Being,  in  its  whole  reality  as  substance  and  quality,  agent  and 
action,  is  presented  in  presentative  intuition.     The  reality  presented  in 
intuition  we  apprehend  in  thought  as  substance  and  quality,  agent  and 
action ;  but  the  reality  thus  apprehended  is  given  in  the  intuition.     It 
*s  so  apprehended  in  thought  because  it  is  so  in  reality.    Rational  intui- 
tion adds  that  being,  thus  known,  is  real  being,  as  reason  in  the  light  of 


BEING  AND   ITS  MODES  OF  EXISTENCE.  157 

its  universal  principles  knows  it  must  be.  Substance  and  quality, 
therefore,  is  not,  as  Kant  regards  it,  a  form  of  pure  thought  wholly 
subjectiv.e  to  the  thinker,  but  it  is  objectively  real  in  the  being  as  known 
in  presentative  intuition,  and  is  so  apprehended  in  thought  both  because 
it  is  so  in  the  particular  being  known,  and  because  Reason  sees  that  it 
must  be  so  in  all  beings. 

This  is  accordant  with  the  earlier  Greek  philosophy,  which  did  not 
use  u-uxg'.>j.s';ov  (substance),  but  duda,  to  denote  Being ;  as  if  we  had 
the  abstract  word  Beingne*s.  The  same  usage  we  find  centuries  later 
in  Augustine :  "  It  is  called  Essence,  as  derived  from  Esse,  and  denoting 
that  which  is ;  and  it  is  also  called  substance,  as  derived  from  subsisto, 
with  the  same  meaning."  *  Essence  is  the  Latin  etymologically  corre- 
sponding with  the  Greek  oueia,  and  might  legitimately  be  used  with 
the  same  meaning,  were  it  not  appropriated  in  logic  to  a  different  use 
and  with  a  different  meaning. 

The  ancient  Greeks  debated  whether  everything  is  in  constant  flux 
and  transition,  or  whether  under  all  changes  something  stands.  In 
self-consciousness  I  know  myself  as  the  subject  of  many  qualities  and 
many  successive  acts,  yet  myself  under  all  the  changes  persisting  the 
same.  The  same  is  known  in  every  being ;  under  diverse  qualities  and 
successive  acts  the  being  stands  the  same.  To  denote  the  being  thus 
standing  the  same  under  many  qualities  and  successive  changes,  we  call 
it  •<  lib-stance;  that  which  subsists  or  stands  the  same  under  all  diverse 
qualities  and  changes.  It  might  with  equal  propriety  have  been  called 
j)ersistence,  as  that  which  stands  unchanged  through  all  changes  suc- 
cessive in  time.  But  as  it  stands  out  knowable  in  its  attributes  we 
speak  of  its  existence. 

Here  we  have  the  synthesis  of  phenomenon  and  being.  It  is  the 
synthesis  of  subsistence  or  substance  and  ex-istence.  The  Being  in  one 
aspect  subsists,  in  another  it  exists.  The  phenomenon  is  simply  the 
existence  of  that  which  subsists  and  persists,  revealing  it  to  our  know- 
ledge. As  revealed  or  appearing  we  call  it  phenomenon.  But  it  is  the 
phenomenon  or  appearing  of  the  being.  The  phenomenon  is  filled  with 
the  being :  it  is  the  being  ex-isting  so  as  to  be  knowable ;  and  thus  it  is 
the  true  and  real  manifestation  of  the  being. 

V.  Being  is  the  fundamental  reality ;  all  other  ultimate  realities  are 
determinate  of  being  and  have  no  significance  otherwise.  Being  is 
presupposed  in  all  the  other  ultimate  realities.  The  other  realities 
primarily  known  in  presentative  intuition  are  modes  of  the  existence  of 
being.  The  ultimate  realities  of  Rational  Intuition  are  realities  only  as 
they  pertain  to  Being ;  they  are  the  Truth,  the  Law,  the  Perfection, 

*  De  Trinitate,  Lib.  VII.,  c.  4. 


158  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

the  Good  of  being ;  and  the  Absolute  is  an  empty  idea  except  as  it  is 
known  as  Absolute  being.  Being  is  a  datum  prerequisite  in  all  gen- 
eralizations and  in  all  thought.  Accordingly  Aristotle  called  the 
categories  genera  of  being  or  of  beings,  yi^  TOO  ovroq  or  rwv  ovrajy. 
He  explicitly  recognizes  concrete,  individual,  determinate  being  (rode 
rt)  as  the  unit  of  knowledge,  and  primary  being  (-/>wr>?  01x7 in.)  as 
present  in  all  reality,  known  in  all  knowledge,  and  supposed  in  all  the 
categories.* 

Reality  is  a  broader  term  than  being.  While  the  qualities  of  a  being 
cannot  be  thought  of  as  existing  separate  from  the  being,  we  may  direct 
attention  to  a  particular  quality  and  thus  abstract  it  in  thought.  Such 
an  abstract  idea  is  a  reality,  but  we  cannot  call  it  a  being.  Reality 
includes  being  and  all  its  modes  of  existence  and  the  forms  in  which 
reason  knows  it.  A  thought  or  feeling  or  action  is  a  reality,  but  is  not 
a  being.  Modes  of  existence,  however,  have  no  reality,  except  as  modes 
of  the  existence  of  being.  However  abstract  a  general  notion  may  be 
it  is  real  only  as  it  is  a  subjective  notion  of  the  thinker,  or  is  the  notion 
of -modes  of  existence  in  some  being.  A  centaur  is  real  as  the  fancy 
of  a  mind.  Solidity  is  real  not  only  as  the  thought  of  a  mind  but  also 
as  a  property  of  a  body.  There  is  no  reality  apart  from  being. 

§  SO.   Modes  of  Existence. 

I.  POWER.     This  is  the  first  mode  of  existence. 

In  knowing  action,  man  know«  power  to  act.  He  knows  his  own 
power  in  his  own  action  and  the  power  of  outward  objects  in  their 
action  on  his  organism.  In  action  being  ex-ists  or  comes  out  to  view 
as  having  powrer  to  act.  Power  is  the  primary  mode  of  existence ;  it  is 
characteristic  of  all  beings  and  is  their  primary  manifestation,  whereby 
they  are  knowable.  Power  to  act  is  known  immediately  in  self-con- 
sciousness and  sense-perception  ;  it  cannot  be  defined ;  but  is  known  only 
in  the  presentative  intuition  of  it.  Powrer  may  be  distinguished  as  of 
various  kinds  by  the  actions  in  which  it  reveals  itself,  as  power  of 
knowing,  thinking,  determining,  power  of  communicating  and  arresting 
motion. 

When  a  being  is  observed  to  exist  in  the  continuous  and  unchanging 
manifestation  in  itself  of  any  power,  we  call  the  being  a  substance  and 
the  power  a  quality.  When  the  being  is  observed  to  manifest  power 
in  any  beginning  or  change  of  existence  in  itself  or  another  we  call  the 
being  a  cause,  the  power  an  energy  and  the  beginning  or  change  of 
existence  an  effect.  Substance  and  cause  are  different  names  of  being 
according  as  its  powers  are  observed  in  continuous  and  unchanging 

*  To  6e  TI  Tifyu  naO"  endo-rjv  /car?/} -opiav.     Met.  p.  1032a,  13-15. 


BEING  AND   ITS  MODES  OF   EXISTENCE.  J59 

manifestation  of  itself,  or  in  a  beginning  or  change  of  existence  in  itself 
or  another. 

The  present  tendency  of  scientific  thought  is  to  the  conception  of  na- 
ture as  dynamic.  Matter  is  no  longer  inert,  but  energetic ;  all  masses 
are  in  motion ;  the  molecules  are  in  motion  among  themselves ;  an  atom 
itself  is,  as  some  suppose,  a  whirling  vortex  of  matter.  Rest  is  relative 
only.  Accordingly  the  so-called  qualities  of  beings  are  called  powers. 
Hence  it  is  not  uncommon  to  designate  a  being  as  a  power,  although  this 
language  is  to  be  accepted  only  as  a  metonymy.  Prof.  Bowne  says, 
"  Substance  is  individualized  force  or  power."  *  But  this  is  inadequate ; 
for  both  power  and  individuality  are  modes  of  existence,  and  have  no 
significance,  except  as  the  power  and  individuality  of  a  being.  If  being 
is  nothing  without  power,  power  is  nothing  without  being.  Nor  does 
any  one  in  this  way  escape  the  recognition  of  being.  Every  attempt 
to  identify  being  with  power  must  issue  in  hypostasizing  the  power ; 
then  we  have  the  power  hypostasized  and  the  power  appearing  in  quali- 
ties and  acts,  and  find  ourselves  again  confronted  with  the  old  two  in 
one,  substance  and  quality,  agent  and  action,  being  and  existence.  No 
thinker  can  throw  his  thought  below  being;  nor  can  complete  his 
thought  above  it  and  without  it. 

Cause  is  not  merely  a  form  of  pure  thought  without  content ;  its  con- 
tent is  being  exerting  power  in  effecting  a  beginning  or  change  of  exist- 
ence. Cause  and  effect  are  not  mere  antecedent  and  consequent ;  the 
change  called  the  effect  is  effected  by  power  in  the  cause.  And  what 
power  is,  is  known  in  experience  by  presentative  intuition.  James 
Mill  says  that  the  idea  of  power  in  causation  is  "  an  item  altogether 
imaginary.''!  But,  if  so,  whence  came  the  idea  of  power,  which  all 
men  have  ?  Mr.  Mill's  assertion  implies  that  imagination  has  the  trans- 
cendent power  of  creating  the  image  of  an  elemental  reality  never  given 
in  intuition.  And  it  contradicts  the  universal  consciousness.  Every 
man  distinguishes  a  cause  as  exerting  power  from  a  mere  antecedent ; 
and  all  language  indicates  the  distinction.  The  fall  of  the  mercury  in 
a  barometer  is  the  antecedent  of  a  storm,  but  not  its  cause  ;  the  opening 
of  the  floodgates  is  an  antecedent  of  the  flow  of  water  and  the  turning 
of  the  water-wheel,  but  not  their  cause.  "W.  R.  Grove  says  truly  that 
to  cease  to  use  the  words  cause  and  force  with  this  meaning  would 
render  the  language  unintelligible.  J 

A  cause  may  be  agent,  or  transitive,  or  reactive.  An  Agent  cause 
merely  acts  or  exerts  power  without  effect  beyond  the  act  itself;  as,  I 
think,  I  choose,  I  determine.  There  is  also  no  causative  act  interme- 

*  Studies  in  Theism,  p.  234. 

f  Analysis  of  the  Human  Mind,  Vol.  II.,  p.  256. 

J  Correlation  of  Physical  Forces.  Youman's  Ed.,  pp.  18,  21. 


160  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

diate  between  the  agent  and  the  action ;  the  being  manifests  itself  in  the 
immediate  forth-putting  of  power.  The  act  must  be  referred  to  the 
agent  as  its  cause,  and  that  which  is  caused  is  merely  the  act  itself.  A 
cause  is  transitive  when  the  power  passes  beyond  the  immediate  action 
and  effects  an  additional  change ;  as  when  by  volition  I  raise  my  hand, 
and  move  the  air  in  contact  with  it.  In  this  case  the  cause  produces 
the  effect  by  an  act  of  power  intermediate  between  the  cause  and  the 
effect.  Physical  science  recognizes  an  actual  transmission  of  energy. 
A  reactive  cause  produces  an  effect  by  power  reacting  against  a  power 
acting  on  it ;  as  arresting  motion.  A  personal  being  is  a  free  cause. 
He  not  only  does  his  own  actions,  but  in  the  exercise  of  his  energy  he 
is  autonomic,  self-directive  and  self-exertive. 

All  finite  beings  are  acted  on  by  powers  exerted  on  them  by  some 
cause ;  the  being  so  acted  on  is  object  or  recipient.  This  corresponds  to 
the  Aristotelian  category  of  passion.  The  effect  of  the  action  is  a  new 
action  in  the  recipient ;  as  the  stroke  of  the  bat  communicates  molar 
motion  to  the  ball  or  the  blow  of  a  hammer  communicates  molecular 
motion  to  the  anvil.  Locke  properly  called  this  receptivity  passive 
power. 

II.  ONE  and  MANY.     The  second  mode  of  existence. 

1.  Individuality  and  Identity.  In  knowing  himself  as  the  subject  of 
diverse  qualities  and  of  successive  acts  man  knows  himself  as  an  indi- 
vidual, as  one  and  the  same  being  in  all  the  diversity  of  action  which 
he  knows  in  immediate  consciousness  or  in  memory.  It  is  not  by 
reflective  thought  that  he  combines  these  diversities  into  a  unity ;  but 
in  every  act  he  is  conscious  of  himself  as  one  and  the  same  self.  He 
cannot  be  said  even  to  remember  himself,  since  the  knowledge  of 
himself  as  persisting  the  same,  is  presupposed  in  the  knowledge  of 
succession  and  in  the  memory  of  past  acts.  Thus  the  knowledge  of 
individuality  and  identity  originates  in  self-consciousness,  as  already 
explained. 

Individuality,  however,  does  not  imply  simplicity.  It  is  always  a 
unity  of  the  diverse ;  the  human  mind  cannot  think  of  an  individual 
that  is  perfectly  simple.  The  unity  of  an  individual  is  not  of  several 
beings  in  one,  but  of  several  powers  in  one  and  the  same  being.  A 
man  is  many-sided ;  but  always  knows  himself  as  one  and  the  same. 

The  individual  is  not  indivisible  in  the  sense  that  his  various  modes 
of  being  cannot  be  distinguished  in  thought,  but  in  the  sense  that  the 
unity  of  those  modes  is  not  a  unity  of  thought  merely,  but  a  unity  as 
the  modes  of  existence  of  one  and  the  same  being. 

The  individual  is  not  indivisible  in  the  sense  that  it  is  independent 
and  indestructible ;  but  in  the  sense  that  the  being  remains  one  and 
the  same  in  all  modes  of  existence  however  diverse,  and  in  all  relations 


BEING  AND   ITS  MODES  OF  EXISTENCE.  161 

to  other  beings  however  complicated.  A  person  can  never  be  blended 
into  another  being  or  lost  in  any  combination  of  beings.  It  is  always 
one  and  the  same  person.  Nor  can  the  person  be  divided  into  two 
persons,  for  the  division  would  be  the  extinction  of  the  person.  So 
necessary  and  universal  is  this  knowledge  of  self  as  an  individual 
being,  that  it  has  been  the  common  and  spontaneous  belief  of  man- 
kind ;  and  the  belief  has  been  so  inwrought  into  their  constitution  that 
they  have  believed  that  through  even  the  change  which  takes  place  at 
death  the  man  persists,  as  he  has  persisted  through  all  the  changes  of 
life,  and  survives  in  another  mode  of  existence,  the  same  individual 
being.  The  explanation  of  this  world-wide  belief  as  if  it  originated  in 
man's  sight  of  his  own  shadow  or  his  remembrance  of  his  dreams  is  a 
conjecture  not  verified  by  observed  facts  and  as  an  hypothesis  is  entirely 
inadequate.  The  only  philosophical  explanation  is  found  in  the  fact 
that  man  knows  himself  as  persisting  one  and  the  same  through  all 
changes,  and  that  this  knowledge  of  himself  is  presupposed  in  the  unity 
and  continuity  of  all  knowledge.  This  knowledge  is  included,  at  least 
as  virtual  or  implicit  consciousness,  in  all  knowledge  whatever. 

2.  Individuality  and  otherness  or  alterity.  We  have  been  considering 
difference  of  qualities  or  powers  in  the  same  being.  There  is  also  the 
distinction  of  being  from  other  beings,  not  merely  by  qualities  or  powers, 
but  also  by  being  itself. 

As  the  knowledge  of  individuality  and  identity  originates  in  the 
knowledge  of  self,  the  idea  of  otherness  originates  in  our  knowledge  of 
beings  not  ourselves.  In  perceiving  an  outward  object  I  know  it  as  a 
being  acting  on  me  or  on  which  I  react.  The  perceptive  intuition  pre- 
sents the  "  matter"  or  object  of  the  knowledge,  and  the  reason  sees  it  in 
its  rational  "  form,"  as  the  power  of  a  being  that  is  not  me ;  it  is  another 
being.  When  a  man  knows  himself  as  /  he  may  know  another  person 
as  Thou. 

In  logic  an  individual  is  a  completely  determinate  being.  It  may 
belong  to  a  class,  but  it  has  peculiarities  by  which  it  is  distinguished 
from  all  other  individuals  of  its  own  or  any  other  class.  In  logic  two 
beings  completely  determinate  and  just  alike  would  coincide  and  become 
one ;  because  logic,  in  forming  its  general  notions,  recognizes  nothing 
but  the  attributes  and  attains  nothing  but  an  idea  or  notion.  Hence 
Leibnitz  insisted  that  no  two  things  can  be  exactly  alike ;  *  confounding 
the  logical  notion  with  the  being,  and  imagining  that  the  beings  would 
coincide  and  become  one  as  the  logical  notions  do.  It  is  one  of  innu- 
merable instances  of  philosophers  running  into  profound  errors  by  con- 
founding logical  abstractions  with  concrete  beings.  But,  as  we  have 

*  Nouveaux  Essais,  Avant-Propos. 
11 


162  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

seen,  the  objects  of  concrete  thought  are  beings  in  their  modes  of  exist- 
ence. An  individual  is  not  only  completely  determinate,  but  is  also  a 
completely  determinate  being.  And  if  the  attributes  of  two  beings  were 
precisely  alike,  they  would  still  be  separate  as  two  distinct  beings — 
separate  by  the  whole  breadth  of  being. 

The  ultimate  units  of  all  thought  are' of  three  classes:  —  Finite  per- 
sons ;  Material  beings,  whatever  the  ultimate  units  of  matter  may  be ; 
God  the  absolute  and  unconditioned  One. 

3.  Number.  The  idea  of  number  originates  from  the  knowledge  of 
beings  as  individuals.  They  are  thus  known  as  one  and  another.  Not 
attending  to  their  peculiar  attributes,  but  simply  to  the  individuals,  we 
know  them  as  distinct  beings,  one  and  another  and  another.  Man  then 
learns  to  distinguish  one  from  two,  two  from  three,  as  groups  of  different 
numbers  come  before  him ;  and  to  these  groups  he  gives  names,  one, 
two,  three  and  so  on.  When  familiar  with  the  names,  he  comes  to 
abstract  the  beings,  and  the  empty  forms  of  number  remain  ;  which  he 
designates  by  symbols.  He  then  invents  some  method  of  notation  by 
the  multiples  of  some  unit-number,  by  which  he  is  able  to  designate 
large  numbers  and  to  calculate  arithmetically. 

The  knowledge  of  number  is  given  in  the  virtual  or  implicit  con- 
sciousness so  soon  as  a  man  knows  himself  as  an  individual  and  distin- 
guishes himself  from  another.  But  the  mind  attains  to  the  explicit 
apprehension  of  the  empty  forms  of  number  and  learns  to  name  them 
only  by  a  slow  and  difficult  process.  Children  must  have  visible  objects 
to  count  for  a  long  time  before  they  can  reckon  by  the  abstract  forms 
and  names.  The  capacity  for  arithmetic  is  comparatively  late  in  its 
development.  And  anthropologists  tell  us  of  savages  who  have  attained 
the  idea  of  a  divinity  before  they  could  count  beyond  the  number  of 
their  fingers. 

Some  philosophers  have  proposed  the  theory  that  the  idea  of  number 
originates  from  the  idea  of  succession  in  time.  This  theory  is  not  satis- 
factory as  an  explanation  of  the  idea,  and  is  not  supported  by  any 
known  facts. 

III.    EXTENSION  IN  SPACE.     The  third  mode  of  existence. 

In  perceptive  intuition  we  have  knowledge  of  bodies  extended  in 
space.  We  know  our  own  bodies  posited  in  space  and  moving  in  it. 
Also  by  handling  bodies  I  know  them  as  extended.  Also  by  moving 
my  body  from  place  to  place  or  extending  my  hand  from  one  body  to 
another  I  have  knowledge  of  distance  and  direction.  Thus  in  perceptive 
intuition  I  have  immediate  knowledge  of  extension  in  three  dimensions, 
of  distance  and  of  direction. 

If  now  in  thought  I  abstract  the  body  from  its  place,  void  place  is 
left ;  I  cannot  think  it  away.  It  is  empty  room  for  a  body.  In  passing 


BEIXG  AND   ITS  MODES  OF  EXISTENCE.  163 

from  place  to  place,  I  find  extension,  as  room  for  body,  continuous,  and 
since  all  place  that  I  observe  is  continuous  I  may  infer  by  the  Baconian 
induction  that  room  for  bodies  extends  continuous  in  the  three  dimen- 
sions to  the  farthest  stars.  So  far  our  knowledge  by  perceptive  intuition 
and  our  reflection  on  it  extends. 

Now  by  rational  intuition  we  know  that  room  for  bodies  is  continuous, 
immovable  and  illimitable.  It  is  impossible  to  think  it  absent  any- 
where ;  it  is  impossible  to  think  that  it  moves  on  itself  or  is  in  any  way 
changed  ;  and  it  is  impossible  to  think  it  limited,  because  it  cannot  be 
bounded  except  by  further  room.  We  have  also  all  the  rational  intui- 
tions which  are  the  basis  of  geometry.  Thus  we  have  the  knowledge 
of  space  as  reason  knows  it  in  its  "  forms "  of  universal  and  necessary 
truth. 

Space  as  thus  known  is  not  a  pure  subjective  form  of  thought,  but  is 
a  form  of  things.  The  particular  reality  which  gives  it  content  is  the 
extension  of  bodies  in  three  dimensions,  their  distance  and  direction  as 
intuitively  perceived  and  all  that  we  learn  of  the  same  in  thought.  By 
rational  intuition  this  reality  is  known  in  its  universal  significance  as 
continuous,  immovable,  unchangeable  and  illimitable  room  for  being. 
Yet,  as  known  in  rational  intuition,  space  has  no  significance  except  in 
relation  to  bodies  and  cannot  even  be  thought  except  as  room  for  them. 
The  knowledge  of  body  is  first ;  the  knowledge  of  space  is  derived  from 
it.  This  is  the  clear  idea  of  space  as  it  lies  unvexed  by  metaphysics  in 
the  mind.  And  the  result  of  metaphysical  thought  must  still  be  that 
space  is  continuous,  unlimited  room  for  bodies,  and  thus  has  reality  only 
as  related  to  bodies  or  at  least  to  the  possibility  of  their  existence. 

The  doctrine  that  space  is  merely  a  subjective  form  of  sense  is  con- 
trary to  all  consciousness.  Our  consciousness  that  our  bodies  exist  in 
space,  not  space  in  us,  is  as  decisive  as  consciousness  can  be.  The  denial 
of  it  is,  as  Spencer  says,  "  as  repugnant  to  common  sense  as  any  propo- 
sition that  can  be  framed."  *  The  denial  is  not  demanded  by  Reason 
to  meet  any  necessity  of  thought.  On  the  contrary,  the  denial  of  the 
external  reality  of  space  and  the  affirmation  that  it  is  a  form  of  sense 
within  us  involve  complete  egoistic  idealism,  according  to  which  the 
world  and  all  in  it  are  merely  somebody's  subjective  impressions  and 
every  man  has  a  universe  of  his  own  in  his  own  mind ;  and  to  every 
man  every  other  man  with  his  peculiar  universe  is  but  a  subjective 
idea.  This  theory  of  the  subjectivity  of  space  is  a  part  of  Kant's  phe- 
nomenalism ;  if  true,  it  necessitates  phenomenalism  and  issues  in  com- 
plete dogmatic  agnosticism.  If  space  and  time  have  no  objective 
reality,  all  that  we  suppose  to  exist  in  space  and  time,  whether  subject 

*  The  Last  Postulate,  Westminster  Kev.,  October,  1853. 


164  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

or  object,  is  also  unreal.  But  space  is  a  form  of  things  ;  as  such,  while 
objectively  real  to  us,  it  is  a  form  of  thought  archetypal  in  the  Absolute 
Reason ;  and  equally  are  things  themselves,  with  all  their  principles 
and  laws,  archetypal  in  the  Eternal  Reason. 

It  has  been  supposed  that  the  belief  that  space  has  but  three  dimen- 
sions is  an  ultimate  datum  of  consciousness.  But  among  the  strange 
novelties  of  our  day  is  a  school  of  mathematicians,  of  whom  the  late 
Prof.  Clifford  was  one,  who  claim  to  have  discovered  a  fourth  dimension 
of  space.  It  is  evident,  however,  that  in  thinking  and  writing  of  space 
with  four  dimensions  or  with  manifold  dimensions,  these  mathematicians 
are  governed,  like  the  rest  of  us,  by  the  inevitable  ideas  and  axioms  of 
space  with  three  dimensions.  They  speak  of  radii  of  circles  and  other 
straight  lines,  as  if  straight  lines  in  the  sense  in  which  we  use  the  ex- 
pression, were  known  to  exist  in  this  inconceivable  kind  of  space.  They 
use  the  principles  true  only  of  space  with  three  dimensions  in  proving 
that  it  has  four  or  more.  They  speak  of  curved,  spherical,  non-homal- 
oidal  space  as  distinguished  from  space  with  three  dimensions,  which 
they  designate  as  homaloidal  or  flat ;  as  if  space  were  itself  a  body  con- 
tained in  space ;  as  if  in  fact  space  with  four  dimensions  were  a  sphere 
or  curved  body  of  some  sort  contained  in  space  with  three  dimensions ; 
for  it  is  only  in  the  latter  that  we  have  any  knowledge  of  a  curve  or 
sphere.  Figure,  position,  distance,  direction,  so  far  as  the  words  have 
any  meaning  to  us,  are  conditioned  on  space  with  three  dimensions  and 
are  contained  in  it.  They  have  no  meaning  when  predicated  of  space 
itself.  Space  has  no  figure,  position,  distance  or  direction. 

In  solving  geometrical  problems  by  algebraic  methods  we  sometimes 
reach  an  unthinkable  and  impossible  result,  as  the  square  root  of  minus 
a;  but  solving  the  problem  by  the  geometrical  method,  the  significance 
of  the  result  is  made  plain,  as  that  the  line  is  produced  in  the  oppo- 
site direction.  The  hypothesis  of  a  fourth  dimension  of  space  is  pro- 
posed to  explain  certain  unthinkable  and  impossible  conclusions  of 
mathematical  demonstrations.  The  mathematical  reasoning  issuing  in 
the  conclusion  may  be  correct  and  the  conclusion  necessary  from  the 
definitions  assumed.  If  in  the  progress  of  knowledge  we  become  able 
to  look  at  the  problem  from  a  new  point  of  view  or  to  solve  it  by  a 
new  process,  the  conclusion  may  become  intelligible  and  the  contradic- 
tion disappear.  But  the  hypothesis  of  a  fourth  dimension  of  space  to 
explain  it  is  not  scientific ;  it  is  the  farthest  possible  from  a  vera  causa, 
such  as  is  admissible  in  a  scientific  hypothesis ;  and  it  explains  nothing  ; 
for  a  fourth  dimension  of  space  is  itself  unthinkable,  and  the  affirma- 
tion that  it  exists  is  simply  nonsense,  words  without  meaning,  like  the 
old  scholastic  question,  "  An  chimsera  bombitans  in  vacuo  possit  come- 
dere  secundas  intentiones?" 


BEING  AND  ITS  MODES  OF  EXISTENCE.  165 

IV.  DURATION  IN  TIME.     The  fourth  mode  of  existence. 

In  perceptive  intuition  we  know  ourselves  as  persisting  in  successive 
acts ;  thus  we  know  the  duration  of  existence  and  the  succession  of 
events.  If  we  think  away  the  being  that  is  persistent,  there  remains 
the  time  in  which  he  was  existing.  That  cannot  be  thought  away. 
Having  thus  the  idea  of  time,  hi  rational  intuition  we  know  that  it 
must  be  continuous,  immovable  and  illimitable.  There  must  always  be 
time  for  beings  to  act.  The  development  of  this  idea  is  entirely  ana- 
logous to  the  development  of  the  idea  of  space  and  needs  not  be  further 
considered. 

It  may  be  added,  however,  that  the  distinction  is  not  properly 
between  time  and  eternity,  but  between  time  measured  by  successive 
events  of  existence  and  time  not  thus  measured.  It  is  not  time  that 
flows  through  successive  events,  but  successive  events  which  flow  in 
time. 

"  Sur  les  mondes  de"truits  dort  le  Temps  immobile." 

Time  is  commonly  identified  with  life  or  history  measured  by  events, 
and  thus  conceived  as  distinct  from  eternity.  There  is  an  eternity 
past  and  an  eternity  to  come,  and  time,  in  which  we  live  and  act,  is 
conceived  as  lying  between  them  like  a  strait  between  two  oceans. 
But  the  time  of  our  lives  might  be  better  illustrated  as  a  current  in  the 
ocean,  wrhich  flows  in  its  own  particular  course,  while  the  ocean  re- 
mains the  same ;  and  the  current  as  it  flows  swells  with  the  ceaseless 
tides  and  heaves  with  the  ceaseless  billows  of  the  unchanging  ocean  in 
which  it  always  is. 

V.  LIMITATION  AND  QUANTITY.     The  fifth  mode  of  existence. 
Quantity  is  predicable,  not  directly  of  beings,  but  of  their  duration, 

extension  and  power.  The  idea  arises  in  the  perception  of  the  limita- 
tion of  duration,  extension  or  power,  and  of  the  different  degrees  of 
limitation,  as  more  or  less.  *In  lifting  weights  I  find  my  power  limited, 
and  limited  in  different  degrees.  In  moving  my  hand  along  lines  or 
surfaces  I  find  them  limited  and  hi  different  degrees.  If  I  hold  a  weight 
in  each  hand  I  perceive  that  they  are  equal  or  unequal.  If  I  see  two 
straight  rods  side  by  side  I  perceive  that  they  are  equal  or  unequal  in 
length.  Thus  arises  the  idea  of  quantity  and  of  equality  or  inequality. 
We  are  then  able  to  adopt  some  determinate  quantity  as  a  unit  for 
measuring  other  quantities. 

VI.  DIFFERENCE  AND  RELATION.     The  sixth  Mode  of  Existence. 

The  foregoing  are  modes  of  the  existence  of  beings  in  their  individu- 
ality. But  beings  do  not  exist  isolated ;  they  are  in  unity  with  other 
beings  in  a  system.  The  peculiarity  by  which  they  are  distinguished 
we  call  difference,  and  the  reality  by  which  they  are  in  unity  we  call 


166  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

relation.  Difference  and  relation  are  observed  modes  of  the  existence 
of  beings.  We  know  beings  as  distinct  and  different,  and  yet  as  in 
relation,  because  they  exist  distinct  and  different,  and  yet  in  relation. 
It  is  because  beings  exist  thus  that  all  thought  must  consist  of  appre- 
hension, differentiation  and  integration.  Difference  and  relation  are 
really  two  modes  of  existence ;  but  they  are  so  constantly  associated  in 
thought  that  it  is  convenient  to  consider  them  together. 

Beings  are  distinguished  and  related  in  each  of  the  modes  of  exist- 
ence already  noticed.  In  power  uniformly  manifested  as  quality,  we 
have  likeness  and  unlikeness.  In  the  power  of  knowing  and  thinking, 
we  have  the  relation  of  subject  and  object.  In  the  energy  of  transitive 
cause,  we  have  the  relation  of  interaction ;  in  space,  relations  of  distance 
and  direction ;  in  time,  relations  of  contemporaneousness,  and  of  before 
and  after ;  in  quantity  and  number,  relations  of  equality,  of  more  or 
less,  of  ratio  and  proportion.  There  are  also  distinctions  and  relations 
in  those  forms  of  power  manifested  in  organic  life,  as  of  parent  and 
offspring,  and  particularly  in  sensitivity.  In  personality  we  find  dis- 
tinctions and  relations  transcending  all  that  have  been  mentioned,  and 
characterizing  the  rational  and  moral  system,  in  which  the  interaction 
is  by  moral  influence  and  under  moral  law.  The  full  significance  of 
these  is  dependent  on  the  rational  intuitions  and  the  ultimate  realities 
known  through  them. 

These  differences  and  relations  are  primarily  presented  in  intuition. 
Thought  does  not  originate  them;  it  simply  traces  them  out  in  the 
unelaborated  nebulous  matter  of  intuition.  I  see  at  a  glance  the  dif- 
ference between  white  and  black ;  if  not,  no  thinking  could  ever  have 
revealed  it  to  me.  In  like  manner  I  perceive  resemblance.  If  two 
silver  dimes  lie  before  me,  they  are  both  present  to  my  vision  and  J 
perceive  their  likeness.  The  resemblance  is  a  reality  presented  in  the 
intuition,  of  which  otherwise  we  could  have  no  knowledge  or  conception. 
It  is  objected  that  this  process  implies  memory,  comparison  and  judg- 
ment. The  objection  has  force  against  Keid's  theory  that  we  perceive 
the  minima  visibilia  in  succession,  but  is  futile  against  the  psychological 
fact,  now  generally  admitted,  that  we  both  perceive  and  attend  to  several 
objects  at  once.  In  like  manner  I  perceive  intuitively  the  marbles  in 
my  hand  as  many  and  as  all ;  or  the  unequal  height  of  a  man  and  boy 
who  stand  side  by  side.  Nor  can  we  discriminate  by  any  kind  of  differ- 
ence, or  comprehend  in  any  kind  of  relation  which  has  not  first  been 
known  in  intuition.  In  thought  we  trace  out  the  differences  and  rela- 
tions given  in  intuition  and  so  discriminate  the  beings  in  their  differences 
and  comprehend  them  in  their  relations. 

The  qualities  and  powers  of  a  being  are  not  properly  said  to  be 
themselves  in  relation  to  the  being ;  because  they  are  of  the  peculiar 


BEING  AND   ITS   MODES   OF   EXISTENCE.  167 

essence  of  the  being  as  a  completely  determinate  individual.  In 
thought  we  can  abstract  quality  from  substance ;  and  so,  accordantly 
with  formal  logic,  it  is  common  to  speak  of  the  relation  of  substance 
and  quality.  But  in  concrete  or  realistic  thought  substance  and  quality 
are  inseparable.  Substance  is  nothing  without  quality,  and  quality  is 
nothing  without  substance.  Hence  the  qualities  and  powers  of  a  being 
are  not  really  in  relation  to  the  being.  In  speaking  of  the  differences 
and  relations  of  beings  we  assume  the  distinctness  of  beings  as  indi- 
viduals and  speak  of  their  differences  from  and  relations  to  one 
another.  Difference  and  relation  have  no  reality  except  as  the  differ- 
ence and  relation  of  being. 

A  numerical  total  must  be  distinguished  from  a  complex  whole  of 
interacting  beings,  as  a  steam-engine,  a  solar  system,  a  family,  a  nation. 
These  are  unities  by  the  relation  of  interacting  powers ;  not  mere  nu- 
merical totals  in  which  the  units  have  no  content  and  in  the  totality 
simply  count  so  many.  Of  a  numerical  total  the  maxim  is  always 
true  that  the  whole  is  equal  to  the  sum  of  all  the  parts ;  but  this 
is  not  true  of  complex  wholes  which  consist  of  beings  related  in  unity 
by  interaction  of  power.  A  steam-engine,  a  watch,  a  family,  is  far 
other  than  the  numerical  sum  of  all  the  parts.  We  see  here  the  fallacy 
of  those  philosophers  who  accept  the  maxim  as  declaring  the  funda- 
mental constitution  of  the  universe  and  think  they  prove  the  Absolute 
Being  unknowable  because  they  cannot  construct  it  under  this  maxim . 
or  who  propound  the  numerical  triad,  unity,  plurality,  totality,  as  the 
basis  of  all  the  laws  and  the  limitation  of  all  the  matter  of  thought : 
or  who  deny  the  knowledge  of  the  Absolute  because  it  cannot  be  found 
by  counting  or  by  the  arithmetical  rule  of  addition.  These  are  ex- 
amples of  the  evils  brought  on  philosophy  and  theology  by  substituting 
empty  abstractions  for  beings  as  the  objects  thought. 

By  tracing  out  the  differences  and  relations  presented  in  intuition 
and  inferring  others  not  perceived  the  mind  distinguishes  beings  as 
personal  and  impersonal  and  comprehends  them  all  hi  these  two 
classes.  It  knows  all  impersonal  beings  in  the  unity  of  a  Cosmos  or 
system  of  Nature,  all  personal  beings  in  the  unity  of  a  Moral  System 
and  all  finite  beings  in  the  unity  of  a  universe  in  its  relation  to  God. 

I  31.  Inferences. 

I.  Knowledge,  at  its  beginning  in  perceptive  intuition,  is  ontological ; 
that  is,  it  is  knowledge  of  being. 

Ontological  knowledge  arises  at  the  beginning  of  knowledge,  in  per- 
ceptive intuition,  not  in  its  advanced  stages  in  the  knowledge  of  Absolute 
Being.  This  is  the  critical  point  in  defending  the  reality  of  knowledge 
against  agnosticism.  It  is  sometimes  thought  that  the  ontological  ques- 


168  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

tion  meets  us  only  in  the  question  whether  the  knowledge  of  absolute 
being  is  possible.  It  is  really  the  question  whether  the  knowledge  of  any 
being  is  possible.  And  this  resolves  itself  into  the  question  whether 
knowledge  begins  as  the  knowledge  of  being.  If  it  does  not  begin 
thus,  then  the  knowledge  of  being  cannot  come  in  afterwards.  We 
have  already  demonstrated  that  if  knowledge  begins  as  the  knowledge 
only  of  sensations  and  impressions  it  can  never  issue  in  the  knowledge 
of  being. 

But  it  has  been  shown  that  knowledge  is  ontological  at  its  beginning ; 
then  it  goes  on  continually  as  the  knowledge  of  being  and  must  issue  in 
the  knowledge  that  Absolute  Being  exists  ;  it  continues  to  be  the  know- 
ledge of  being  in  its  regress  through  conditions  and  causes  up  to  God. 
Comte  in  his  Positive  Philosophy  affirms  that,  if  it  is  once  admitted 
that  we  have  knowledge  of  cause  or  force  as  distinct  from  the  phenomena 
of  motion,  we  must  eventually  admit  that  there  is  a  God. 

II.  In  man's  perceptive  intuition  of  himself  and  his  environment  his 
knowledge  begins  as  knowledge  of  personal  and  impersonal  beings.  The 
two  classes  of  persons  and  things  are  discriminated  and  comprehended 
in  thought.  But  the  beings  distinguished  and  their  distinctive  attri- 
butes are  perceived  in  the  very  beginning  of  knowledge,  and  equally  in 
all  subsequent  perceptions.  They  are  presented,  as  has  been  shown,  in 
one  and  the  same  intuition. 

Mr.  Mansel  objects  that  consciousness  is  an  attribute  of  the  Ego,  and 
in  the  consciousness  of  self  the  knowledge  of  being  arises ;  therefore  a 
body  cannot  be  known  as  a  being  because,  in  denying  that  it  is  con- 
scious, "  I  deny  the  only  form  in  which  unity  and  substance  aro  known 
to  me."  *  The  objection  would  be  valid  if  my  knowledge  that  the  out 
ward  object  is  a  being  were  an  inference  from  my  knowledge  of  myself; 
but  it  is  the  immediate  perception  of  power  acting  on  me,  and  the 
rational  intuition  that  all  power  is  exerted  by  a  being.  The  objection 
would  be  valid  if  the  outward  object  were  only  known  negatively  as  a 
not-me,  as  J.  G.  Fichte  teaches  ;  but  it  is  known  positively  in  my  know- 
ledge of  my  own  body  and  the  power  impinging  on  it.  Moreover,  if 
every  peculiarity  of  myself  is  an  essential  attribute  of  being,  then 
necessarily  I  am  the  only  being  in  the  universe.  We  may  know  beings 
in  different  modes  of  existence  or  endowed  with  different  attributes,  just 
as  we  know  dogs  of  different  characteristics. 

Phenomenalism  has  been  excluded  by  the  fact  that  knowledge  is 
ontological  in  its  beginning  in  perceptive  intuition.  Now  Materialism 
is  excluded  by  the  fact  that  knowledge  in  its  beginning  in  perceptive 
intuition  is  the  knowledge  of  self,  endowed  with  the  attributes  of  a  per- 

*  Prolegomena  Logica,  p.  125. 


BEING  AND  ITS  MODES  OF  EXISTENCE.  169 

sonal  being ;  and  Idealism  is  excluded  by  the  fact  that  in  the  same  act  of 
perceptive  intuition  man  knows  outward  bodies  occupying  space  and 
moving  in  it,  and  endowed  with  the  attributes  of  impersonal  being.  And 
the  knowledge  of  each  is  positive  knowledge  in  one  and  the  same  mental 
act,  so  that  if  the  knowledge  of  either  is  unreal  the  knowledge  of  the 
other  is  unreal  also. 

Kant  recognizes  the  "  I  think,"  the  Synthetic  unity  of  all  conscious- 
ness, as  going  along  with  all  knowledge,  but  only  as  a  phenomenal  unity 
of  apperceptions  separated  by  an  impassable  gulf  from  the  real  being. 
Therefore  his  Ego,  Cosmos  and  God  remain  mere  ideas,  necessary  indeed, 
but  void  of  content.  To  escape  from  this  phenomenalism,  J.  G.  Fichte 
starts  with  the  knowledge  of  self  as  real  being.  He  teaches  that  things 
are  really  and  in  themselves  what  they  are  necessarily  thought  to  be 
by  rational  beings,  and  that  therefore,  to  every  rational  Ego  of  which  a 
finite  mind  can  conceive,  that  is  the  truth  of  reality  which  is  neces- 
sarily true  to  thought.  But  he  teaches  that  the  matter  of  knowledge 
is  itself  given  by  the  same  synthetic  activity  of  the  intellect  which, 
according  to  Kant,  gives  the  forms  of  sense  and  the  categories  of  the 
understanding ;  that  the  outward  object  is  known  only  as  a  negation  or 
not-me,  not  as  a  power  positively  acting  on  the  sensorium  and  revealing 
a  being  that  causes  it.  Thus,  as  Kant  himself  suggested,  Fichte's 
attempt  to  attain  a  knowledge  of  the  world  from  self-consciousness 
without  empirically  given  matter,  gave  only  a  shadowy  and  ghostly 
impression  instead  of  real  being.  And  in  all  his  later  modifications  of 
his  philosophy  he  cannot  transcend  nor  escape  from  his  primitive  ideal- 
ism. His  God  is  the  moral  order  of  the  universe,  his  universal  or 
absolute  Ego  relapses  into  an  idea  coming  to  consciousness  of  itself  in 
individual  form  in  man. 

Hegel  seems  often  close  to  the  most  fundamental  comprehension  of 
the  true  reality.  For  instance,  with  him  the  antithesis  between  phenome- 
non and  essence,  between  what  appears  and  what  is,  is  only  an  anti- 
thesis of  two  human  modes  of  conception  which  are  afterwards  identified 
hi  a  synthesis.  This  synthesis  is  the  reality ;  the  phenomenon  is  pervaded 
with  the  essence  and  is  thus  its  entire  and  adequate  manifestation. 
Again,  according  to  Hegel,  there  is  one  spiritual  being  to  whom  man  is 
related,  not  merely  as  a  part  of  the  world,  but  as  participating  some- 
how in  the  self-consciousness  of  that  being — a  mode  of  presentation 
which  involves  Pantheism,  though  suggestive  of  the  truth  that  man  is 
so  constituted  and  so  related  to  God  that  the  normal  development  of 
his  own  consciousness  insures  his  consciousness  of  the  presence  of  God. 
Again  he  presents  the  great  truth  that  the  Absolute  Reason  reveals 
or  expresses  itself  in  the  natural  worlds  and  in  the  rational  and  moral 
systems  of  finite  persons.  But  here  again  his  method  of  presentation 


170  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM, 

is  pantheistic.  The  Absolute  underlies  the  finite  universe  of  matter 
and  mind,  not  dynamically  and  rationally,  but  as  their  Substance, 
itself  coming  to  consciousness  in  man.  It  exerts,  or  thrusts  itself  forth 
ad  extra  in  nature ;  it  "  externalizes "  itself,  "  becomes  other  than 
itself."  By  means  of  a  progressive  development  of  nature  from  the 
lowest  to  the  highest  stages  the  Absolute  Reason  returns  from  this 
"  otherness  "  or  "  self-estrangement "  into  itself  in  rational  spirit.  Na- 
ture is  striving  "  to  recover  its  lost  union  with  the  idea ; "  this  union  is 
recovered  in  spirit,  which  is  the  goal  and  end  of  nature.  A  fourth 
instance  of  near  approach  to  the  true  statement,  while  yet  missing  it,  is 
found  in  his  famous  identification  of  things  with  thought.  This  ap- 
proximates to  the  true  synthesis  of  the  two,  which  is  that  the  universe 
is  the  progressive  expression  of  the  archetypal  thoughts  of  God ;  that 
the  necessary  principles  which  are  forms  and  laws  to  thought  are  eter- 
nal in  the  Absolute  Reason  and  thus  are  forms  and  laws  of  things ;  that 
the  absurd  cannot  be  real ;  and  whatever  exists  is  amenable  to  reason 
and  capable  of  rational  explanation.  Hegel's  own  statement  of  the 
identity  seems  sometimes  to  convey  this  meaning,  when  he  says  that 
the  rational  is  real  and  that  the  real  is  rational.  Here  again  by  his 
a  priori  method  developing  his  own  thought  he  seems  to  identify  things 
with  the  subjective  process  of  thinking,  and  so  to  establish  idealism. 
We  find  another  instance  when  he  says  that  God,  aside  from  what  we 
know  of  him  through  the  finite  universe  of  nature  and  spirit,  is  pure 
Being,  without  determinate  attributes,  entirely  void  of  content,  and 
therefore  id  ntical  with  Nothing.  This  is  the  truth  that  the  idea  of  the 
Absolute,  aside  from  what  we  know  of  it  as  the  ground  of  the  universe 
and  accounting  for  it,  is  void  of  content,  and  every  attempt  at  an  a  priori 
development  of  what  it  is,  is  nugatory.  The  purely  a  priori  develop- 
ment of  the  Absolute  is  not  legitimate  to  the  human  mind.  This  bold 
attempt  Hegel  makes.  Clearly  seeing  that  the  purely  a  priori  absolute 
is  entirely  indeterminate  and  equal  to  nothing,  he  fails  to  recognize  this 
zero  as  a  symbol  of  the  cessation  of  thought ;  he  founds  his  philosophy 
on  this  zero  and  attempts  to  develop  from  it  both  the  universe  and  the 
content  of  the  Absolute  itself.  He  immediately  asserts  that  the  nothing  is 
a  Becoming,  and  so,  saltu  mortali,  violently  springs  back  to  the  idea  of 
determinate  Being.  He  conceives  of  the  Absolute  as  externalizing 
itself  in  nature ;  his  philosophy  passes  out  with  it  into  nature  and  re- 
turns with  it  through  nature  to  spirit  and  to  the  Absolute  now  known 
as  Absolute  Reason.  But  from  his  starting  point  this  passage  to  the 
knowledge  of  God  is  impossible.  He  effects  it  only  by  taking  up  truths 
belonging  to  a  different  system.  Hence,  after  all,  the  ideality  of  the 
finite  is  inseparable  from  his  system  and  every  true  philosophy  must  be 
an  Idealism.  The  Absolute  itself,  even  in  the  highest  fullness  of  mean- 


\ 

UNIVERSITY) 

BEING  AND  ITS  MODES  OF  EXISTENCE.  O3T    171L  K  .  / 


ing  which  he  attains  for  it,  is  merely  an  Idea.  Its 
be  primarily,  as  he  himself  avows,  a  mere  logic  or  science  of  thought ; 
and  his  curious  identification  of  the  processes  of  the  world's  develop- 
ment with  processes  of  logic  is  a  legitimate  and  necessary  result  of  his 
in.  Had  he  rightly  understood  his  maxim,  "  Being=0,"  as  a 
symbol  of  the  cessation  of  thought,  warning  him  off  from  a  wrong  and 
abortive  method  ;  had  he  begun  with  the  knowledge  of  beings,  personal 
and  impersonal,  as  they  exist  and  are  known  to  us  in  the  universe ; 
had  he  passed  beyond  the  entanglements  of  formal  logic  and  used  the 
scientific  methods  of  concrete  thought,  he  would  have  established  an 
impregnable  philosophy  of  real  being.  Then  by  the  rational  intuitions 
which  are  regulative  of  all  thought  he  would  have  reached  the  know- 
ledge that  Absolute  Being  exists  not  as  a  zero  but  as  a  Being,  the 
ultimate  and  fundamental  Reality ;  not  as  a  Being  of  which  we  know 
that  it  is,  but  know  not  what  it  is,  but  a  being  endowed  with  all  the 
attributes  necessary  as  the  Ground  of  the  universe ;  thus  would  he 
have  found  the  ultimate  Ground  'and  Unity  of  the  All  in  Absolute 
Reason,  the  personal  God.  Then  he  would  have  found  the  synthesis 
of  being  and  thought : — thought  eternal  and  archetypal  in  God,  the 
eternal  Spirit — the  constitution  of  the  universe  in  the  truths,  the  laws, 
the  ideals,  the  worthy  ends  which  are  eternal  in  the  Absolute  Reason, 
and  of  which  the  universe,  with  its  personal  and  its  impersonal  beings, 
is  the  always  incomplete,  but  the  always  progressive  expression. 

The  failure  of  these  great  systems  demonstrates  that  we  must  know 
being  in  ourselves  and  our  environment,  before  we  can  know  being  or 
even  have  any  real  idea  of  it  in  other  finite  persons  or  in  God. 

III.  In  perceptive  intuition  knowledge  begins  as  knowledge  of  deter- 
minate being.  It  is  the  knowledge  of  myself  or  of  outward  beings  in 
particular  modes  of  existence.  The  concrete  determinate  being  is  the 
unit  of  thought.  It  is  determinate  as  an  individual  being,  never  lost 
by  being  blended  into  another  being.  It  is  also  determinate  by  its 
peculiar  modes  of  existence. 

1.  This  excludes  the  error  that  being  is  in  the  genus,  and  phenomenon 
alone  in  the  individual;  that  the  human  race,  for  example,  is  the 
reality,  and  the  individual  but  an  aspect  or  appearance  of  the  universal 
man ;  that  we  must  begin  with  the  genus  or  the  universal,  and  from 
that  descend  to  the  individual.  This  error  is  contradicted  by  human 
consciousness  in  every  conscious  act.  Here  it  is  objected  that  if  we 
proceed  from  the  existence  of  finite  beings  to  the  existence  of  God,  we 
make  God's  existence  dependent  on  the  finite..  "A  God  proved  by 
us,"  says  a  brilliant  writer,  "  would  be  a  God  made  by  us."  This  is  the 
fallacy,  very  common  in  agnostic  and  pantheistic  philosophy,  of  identi- 
fying the  order  of  our  own  mental  process  with  the  real  order  of  the 


172  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

dependence  of  beings.  This  objection  consists  in  identifying  God's 
actual  relation  to  the  universe,  with  the  mental  processes  by  which  we 
come  to  the  knowledge  of  Him.  It  is  arguing  that  because  our  belief 
in  God  is  an  inference  from  our  knowledge  of  finite  beings,  therefore 
God  is  dependent  on  finite  beings.  Whereas  the  true  significance  of 
the  thought  is  just  the  contrary ;  because  we  know  the  finite  to  be 
dependent  we  know  that  there  must  be  an  absolute  being  that  is  in- 
dependent and  underived.  We  have  a  converse  example  of  this  fallacy 
in  Hegel's  assertion  that  God,  considered  as  existing  before  the  created 
universe,  is  pure  being  and  the  same  as  nothing.  It  is  the  fallacy  that 
because  a  purely  a  priori  conception  of  the  Absolute,  excluding  all 
knowledge  of  him  through  the  created  universe,  is  without  content 
and  equal  to  nothing,  therefore  God  himself  is  nothing,  if  independent 
of  the  finite  universe.  Whereas  when  once  we  have  attained  the  true 
knowledge  of  God  through  the  finite  universe,  wre  know  that  he  must  be 
independent  of  it  and  that  it  is  dependent  on  him.  Therefore  God 
must  be  thought  as  the  prius  of  the  universe ;  and  is  thought  as  pos- 
sessing every  power  which,  as  accounting  for  the  universe,  we  neces- 
sarily attribute  to  him. 

2.  Being  is  not  the  Substantia  una  et  unica  of  Spinoza  and  the  Pan- 
theists, the  one  only  substance  of  which  all  particular  beings  are  the 
modes  of  existence.  Spinoza  defines  substance :  "  By  substance  I  mean 
that  which  is  in  itself  and  is  conceived  by  itself;  in  other  words,  it  is 
that  the  concept  of  which  does  not  require  any  antecedent  concept  from 
which  it  must  be  formed."  *  "  Substance  is  not  manifold  or  multiple, 
but  exists  single  and  is  ever  of  one  and  the  same  nature."  f  This  defi- 
nition of  substance  carries  us  at  once  to  Hegel's  pure  being,  void  of  all 
content  and  equal  to  nothing.  In  defining  substance  from  the  relation 
and  order  of  our  conception  of  it,  he  falls  into  the  fallacy,  already  ex- 
posed, of  identifying  the  order  of  our  mental  processes  in  gaining  a 
knowledge  of  the  universe  and  of  God  with  the  order  of  their  actual 
relations  and  dependence.  He  argues  that  if  the  conception  of  finite 
beings  precedes  in  our  mental  processes  the  conception  of  the  absolute 
substance,  then  the  supposed  substance  would  depend  on  the  finite  beings 
and  would  not  be  the  absolute  substance ;  therefore  that  only  is  absolute 
substance  which  we  conceive  by  an  original  conception  springing  imme- 
diately from  our  consciousness  without  antecedent.  Such  a  conception 
is  of  course  impossible,  and  can  be  represented  only  as  zero.  Thought 
has  ceased. 

A  moment's  thought  discloses  the  fallacy.  In  reality  God  is  absolute 
and  eternal,  preceded  by  nothing,  dependent  on  nothing ;  the  universe 

*  Ethics:   Def.  III.  f  Letter  29, 


BEING  AND  ITS  MODES  OF  EXISTENCE.  173 

is  consequent  and  dependent.  But  in  our  knowing  the  universe,  we 
must  first  know  the  particular  realities  present  to  consciousness,  and 
thence  proceed  to  the  knowledge  of  God  as  their  ultimate  ground  and 
reason.  While  God  is  dependent  on  nothing  antecedent  to  or  outside 
of  Himself,  our  knowledge  of  Him  is  preceded  by  the  knowledge  of 
finite  beings  and  dependent  on  it.  The  human  mind  does  indeed  form 
concepts  not  derived  from  or  dependent  on  any  antecedent  concept ;  but 
these  are  the  original  concepts  or  notions  of  particular  beings  in  par- 
ticular modes  of  existence  given  in  primitive,  intuitive  knowledge  and 
simply  attended  to  and  apprehended  in  thought.  Spinozism  is  vitiated 
both  in  its  definitions  and  its  development  by  identifying  God  and  the 
universe  with  the  process  and  products  of  logic.  Of  this  fallacy  Spinoza 
remained  unconscious. 

Also,  in  regarding  the  Self-existent  and  Absolute  Being  as  the  one 
only  substance  of  which  all  finite  beings  are  modes,  he  falls  into  the  illu- 
sion of  conceiving  it  as  continuous,  extended  substance,  heaving  itself  up 
in  the  various  modes  of  existence  as  the  ocean  heaves  itself  up  in  waves. 
Hence  also  the  illustration  used  by  his  disciples  that  a  man  is  like  a 
bottle  of  the  ocean's  water  in  the  ocean,  temporarily  distinguishable  by 
its  limitation  within  the  bottle,  but  lost  again  in  the  ocean  so  soon  as  the 
fragile  limits  are  broken. 

But  we  have  seen  that  real  knowledge  begins  in  the  knowledge  of 
particular  beings  determinate  both  by  their  individuality  as  beings  and 
by  their  peculiar  modes  of  existence.  This  excludes  Spinozism.  The 
current  scientific  theory  of  atoms  and  molecules  is  entirely  subversive 
of  Pantheism.  On  this  theory  the  unity  of  the  manifold  can  no  longer 
be  found  in  continuous  substance,  but  only  dynamically  and  rationally 
in  power,  thought,  purpose  and  a  rational  system.  In  real  knowledge, 
Theism  and  it  alone  enables  us  to  comprehend  the  multitude  of  indivi- 
duals in  a  system  in  which  w£  find  at  once  the  unity  of  thought  and  the 
unity  of  being,  and  thus  solve  the  ultimate  and  inevitable  problem  of 
the  Keason.  It  builds  on  the  knowledge  of  determinate  beings ;  not  on 

"  Intuitions,  grasps  of  guess, 
That  pull  the  more  into  the  less, 
Making  the  finite  comprehend 
Infinity." 

These  lines  express  the  common  fallacy  of  identifying  the  relations  and 
order  of  the  universe  with  the  relations  and  order  of  our  own  mental 
processes.  Real  knowledge  does  not  "  pull  the  more  into  the  less,"  but 
proceeds  from  the  particular  to  the  universal  according  to  the  necessary 
laws  of  thought.  Knowing  determinate  beings  in  their  powers,  differ- 
ences and  relations,  reason,  in  the  light  of  its  universal  principles,  sees 


174  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

the  necessary  existence  of  being  absolute,  unconditioned  and  all-condi- 
tioning ;  not  an  absolute  identified  with  the  universe,  not  a  universe 
identified  with  the  absolute ;  not  an  absolute  formed  by  exscinding  all 
known  positive  powers  of  finite  being  and  so  identical  with  non-entity ; 
not  an  absolute  determined  a  priori,  and  so  empty  of  all  content,  but 
an  absolute  BEING,  known  as  the  ground  and  sufficient  reason  of  all  that 
is  in  the  universe,  the  unconditioned  and  all-conditioning  being,  having 
in  himself  the  powers  which  account  for  all  things,  the  source  of  all 
finite  beings,  of  all  power,  of  all  truth,  law,  perfection  and  good,  the 
indivisible  One,  distinct  from  the  universe  which  depends  on  him,  the 
absolute  Reason,  the  all-perfect  God, 

3.  Finite  persons  and  things  are  real  beings.  This  exposes  the  error 
of  those  imposing  systems  which,  seeking  an  idea  of  being  more  real 
than  being  itself,  declare  that  the  only  real  being  is  the  Absolute  exist- 
ing not  only  out  of  relation  to  our  faculties,  but  out  of  all  relations,  the 
One  which  is  identical  with  the  All ;  and  that  all  finite  beings  are 
unreal  and  non-being,  mere  modes  of  the  Attributes  of  the  Absolute. 
These  theories  necessarily  issue  in  Agnosticism,  since  they  resolve  the 
whole  universe  into  the  Absolute,  and  the  Absolute  itself  into  an  ad- 
jective without  a  noun,  a  quality  without  a  substance,  a  thought  without 
either  a  thinker  or  an  object  thought.  The  maxim  on  which  these 
theories  rest  should  be  that  direct  contradiction  of  Descartes  which 
Feuerbach  avowed  as  the  basis  of  his  own  philosophy :  "  Cogitans  nemo 
sum;  coyito,  ergo  omnes  sum  homines.'"*  Of  this  type  was  the  pan- 
theistic philosophy  of  Germany,  which  developed  the  errors,  but  not  the 
truths,  of  Kant's  system.  Accordingly  we  find  I.  H.  Fichte  elaborately 
proving  the  reality  of  finite  things,  though,  like  Lazarus,  with  the 
graveclothes  of  the  pantheistic  philosophy  still  entangling  his  steps,  f 
Mr.  Mulford,  on  the  contrary,  follows  in  the  wake  of  the  German  Pan- 
theism :  "  Being  is  of  itself,  in  finite  conditions,  a  vacant  phase  of 
thought."  "  The  empty  notion  of  being  as  derived  from  finite  exist- 
ences." J  But  if  the  knowledge  of  being  is  not  given  in  intuition  it  is 
impossible  for  thought  to  create  it.  If  we  do  not  know  real  being  either 
in  ourselves  or  the  objects  about  us,  we  can  never  know  the  being  of 
God.  A  world  of  "  vacant  phases  of  thought,"  the  thinker  himself 
being  one  of  them,  can  never  carry  the  thought  to  the  being  of  God. 

The  word  being  has  been  often  used  in  philosophy  to  denote  any 
object  of  thought  of  which  it  can  be  affirmed  that  it  is.  Being  then 
would  denote  thought,  feeling,  motion,  distance,  relations,  conditions  as 

*  Quoted,  Mansel,  Limits  of  Religious  Thought,  289. 
f  Theistische  Weltansicht,  $$  30,  31,  pp.  108-114. 
J  Republic  of  God,  pp.  2  and  34. 


BEIXG  AND  ITS  MODES  OF  EXISTENCE.  175 

well  as  persons  and  things.  Thus  including  all  persons  and  things,  all 
qualities,  acts,  conditions  and  relations,  it  has  no  distinctive  and  essen- 
tial content  by  which  it  can  be  distinguished  from  anything  else ;  it  is 
completely  indeterminate.  It  is  in  fact,  as  Hobbes  called  it,  an  hypos- 
tasiziiig  of  the  copula  is,  which  denotes  the  connection  of  any  predicate 
with  any  subject.  Logically  the  inference  follows  that  being,  since  it  is 
entirely  indeterminate,  is  the  same  as  nothing.  Many  using  the  word 
in  this  latitude,  still  attach  to  it,  wittingly  or  unwittingly,  its  legitimate 
and  distinctive  meaning,  and  conclude  that  being  in  every  sense  is  a 
non-entity.  Mr.  Mulford  seems  to  have  followed  this  track  to  his  He- 
gelian conclusion :  "  In  the  process  of  logic  through  finite  conditions, 
the  notion  of  being  is  an  empty  phase  of  thought,  and  is  resolved 
through  a  logical  necessity  into  mere  nothingness ;  but  the  notion  of 
being  derived  from  finite  conditions  is  not  to  be  applied  to  the  being  of 
God."  *  Like  Hegel  himself,  he  here  identifies  the  world-process  with 
a  subjective  process  of  logic,  and  the  world  of  mind  and  matter  itself 
and  all  which  it  contains  with  a  subjective  logical  notion.  And 
throughout,  Mr.  Mulford  identifies  the  necessary  passing  in  human 
thought  from  the  finite  to  the  infinite,  with  the  objective  dependence  of 
God's  being  on  the  finite  and  its  subsequence  to  it. 

Those  who  deny  that  finite  persons  and  things  are  beings,  argue  from 
the  fact  that  they  are  derived  and  dependent.  This  assumes  that  eter- 
nity  and  self-existence  are  essential  to  being.  This  is  not  true.  So  long 
as  I  exist  I  know  myself  as  being,  whether  my  existence  began  lately 
and  will  soon  end  or  I  exist  forever.  We  must  have  the  idea  of  being 
before  we  can  consider  its  origin  and  dependence,  its  finiteness  or  its 
infinitude,  its  conditionateness  or  its  unconditionateness. 

IV.  Being  is  not  an  attribute  but  the  subject  of  attributes.  It  is 
subject  and  attribute  in  synthesis;  or  since  the  being  appears  in  its 
attributes,  we  say  that  being  is  the  real  and  the  phenomenal  in  syn- 
thesis. This  is  in  contradiction  of  Kant's  antithesis  of  the  real  and 
phenomenal. 

Much  of  the  confusion  in  discussing  being  arises  from  regarding  it 
as  an  attribute.  But  I  do  not  predicate  being  of  myself  as  an  at- 
tribute ;  the  being  is  myself,  the  subject  of  all  my  attributes.  When  I 
say,  John  is  a  being,  I  do  not  predicate  being  of  him  as  an  attribute, 
but  simply  affirm  that  he  is  one  of  the  class  of  beings ;  just  as  when 
I  say  John  is  a  man,  I  do  not  affirm  that  man  is  an  attribute  of  John. 

Being  is  not  a  name  of  the  sum  total  of  all  attributes.  For  if 
so  it  is  entirely  indeterminate  and  equivalent  to  nonentity. 

Hegel  in  the   beginning   of  the   logic  says  we  cannot  think  less 

*  Page  212. 


176  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

about  any  thing  than  when  we  predicate  of  it  being;  that  is,  when  we 
say  it  is.  Being  he  regards  here  as  the  noun  corresponding  to  the 
copula  is,  and  denoting  all  possible  predicates.  Hence  it  is  entirely 
indeterminate.  But  being  is  not  an  attribute  but  the  subject  of  at- 
tributes. The  affirmation  respecting  any  object  that  it  is  being  is  not 
a  weak  affirmation ;  it  affirms  that  it  is  the  subject  of  attributes. 

In  this  affirmation  I  also  predicate  of  the  object  of  thought,  those 
attributes  which  are  common  to  all  beings,  whether  persons  or  things, 
whether  finite  beings  or  the  Absolute  being.  These  I  suppose  to  be 
power,  unity  and  identity.  When  I  say  of  any  thing  that  it  is  a  being, 
I  affirm  that  it  is  a  subject  of  attributes,  among  which  must  always  be 
po\ver,  unity  and  identity ;  it  is  endowed  with  power  and  persists  as  one 
and  the  same  being.  This  does  not  preclude  attributes  peculiar  to 
itself,  any  more  than  the  fact  that  a  horse  is  an  animal,  precludes 
qualities  peculiar  to  the  horse.  Descartes  held  that  there  is  nothing 
common  to  matter  and  mind ;  that  communication  between  them  is 
possible  only  by  the  incessant  interaction  of  God.  But  if  the  im- 
passable separation  is  in  the  very  nature  of  matter  and  mind  having 
nothing  in  common,  how  can  God,  who  is  Spirit,  pass  across  to  act  be- 
tween matter  and  mind  without  ceasing  to  be  pure  spirit  ? 

V.  The  determinateness  of  being  does  not  involve  limitation. 

The  scholastic  maxim,  "  omnis  determinatio  negatio  est"  contradicts 
this  proposition  and  affirms  that  all  determinateness  is  negation.  To 
this  agnosticism  appeals  as  to  a  self-evident  axiom  from  which  to 
demonstrate  that  the  Absolute  Being  cannot  be  a  person  and  is  un- 
knowable. This  also  is  the  offspring  of  that  prolific  breeder  of  errors, 
the  identification  of  beings  and  their  powers  with  the  forms  and  pro- 
cesses of  logic.  The  maxim  is  true  of  mathematical  totals ;  the  deter- 
mination of  the  total  sum  is  a  limitation  to  that  sum  and  a  denial  of 
all  not  included  in  it.  It  is  true  of  a  logical  general  notion;  the 
predication  of  attributes  essential  to  the  general  notion  or  concept 
enlarges  its  content  but  limits  its  extent.  The  more  attributes  essential 
to  the  concept  the  fewer  the  beings  included  under  it.  The  more 
determinate  the  concept  the  more  beings  excluded. 

But  the  maxim  has  no  application  whatever  to  real  concrete  beings  ; 
and  can  be  applied  to  them  only  as  they  are  confounded  either  with  a 
mathematical  total  of  parts  or  with  a  logical  notion  or  concept.  Being 
is  determinate  in  itself  as  a  being.  That  which  is  a  being  is  removed 
from  nothing  by  the  whole  breadth  of  being.  To  say  that  anything  is 
a  being  is  not  negation  of  reality  but  affirmation  of  reality ;  it  is  not 
the  affirmation  of  limitation  but  of  positive  reality.  To  be  is  more 
than  not  to  be. 

And  the  possession  of  powers  by  a  being   is  not  a  limitation  but  a 


BEING  AND   ITS   MODES  OF  EXISTENCE.  177 

greatening  of  the  being ;  the  more  and  the  greater  the  powers,  the 
more  and  greater  the  reality,  and  the  farther  the  remove  from 
nothing.  And  the  affirmation  of  these  powers  in  denning  the  being  is 
not  a  negation,  it  is  not  the  assertion  of  defect  but  of  reality.  The 
more  determinate  a  being  is  in  its  attributes  the  higher  it  is  in  the 
order  of  being.  The  notion  dog  has  more  essential  attributes  than  the 
notion  animal;  and  thereby  the  extent  of  the  notion  is  limited;  there 
are  fewer  dogs  than  animals ;  but  the  dog  is  not  limited  but  greatened 
by  the  attributes  which  make  it  more  determinate.  Man  is  a  being 
still  more  determinate,  because  he  has  other  and  higher  attributes ;  but 
he  is  not  therefore  less  than  a  dog  but  greater.  Reason  compels  us  to 
believe  in  the  existence  of  absolute  being,  the  Absolute  Reason  acting 
in  freedom,  endowed  with  almighty  power,  perfect  in  wisdom  and 
love ;  but  these  attributes  do  not  limit,  they  greaten  him ;  the  deter- 
mmateness  of  his  being  in  the  possession  of  these  attributes  is  not  a 
negation  nor  a  limitation ;  and  the  affirmation  of  it  is  not  a  negation 
of  reality  but  the  affirmation  of  reality  and  perfection  of  being  in 
its  highest  thinkable  richness.  This  principle  Spinoza  himself  enun- 
ciates in  the  ninth  proposition  in  the  first  part  of  the  Ethics :  "  The 
more  reality  or  essence  (esse)  anything  has,  the  more  attributes  be- 
long to  it." 

In  like  manner  the  complete  determinateness  of  the  being  as  an 
individual  is  indeed  a  negation  or  limitation  of  the  mathematical  total 
and  of  the  logical  general  notion,  but  it  is  not  a  negation  or  limitation 
of  the  concrete  being.  It  is  no  limitation  of  a  person  that  he  is  himself, 
and  not  a  stone,  or  a  dog,  or  another  person.  This  is  inherent  in  the 
essence  of  personality  and  is  a  perfection  and  not  an  imperfection,  a 
reality  and  not  a  limitation  of  the  being.  The  loss  of  this  individuality 
would  be  the  loss  of  being  itself;  the  loss  of  it  would  involve  negation. 
Hence  the  affirmation  of  individuality  is  not  a  denial  of  reality  but 
an  affirmation  of  it;  but  the  denial  of  individuality  would  be  a 
negation  of  reality  and  of  being. 

It  follows  that  God  is  not  limited  by  his  own  unity  and  identity 
whereby  he  is  distinguished  from  stones,  and  dogs  and  men,  and  all 
finite  things.  God  is  not  the  sum  total  of  finite  things ;  he  is  not  the 
largest  general  notion  of  logic ;  he  is  not  the  universal  abstract  idea  of 
pure  being ;  he  is  not  the  sum  of  all  attributes  ;  he  is  the  living  God, 
distinct  in  his  divine  oneness  of  being  from  all  finite  beings.  That  he 
is  the  Absolute  Reason  and  the  Almighty  Power,  limits  and  conditions 
all  other  beings  as  finite  and  dependent  on  him ;  but  it  does  not 
extinguish  the  reality  of  their  being ;  and  their  being  does  not  limit 
him.  In  truth  the  universe,  instead  of  limiting  God  by  its  existence, 
is  the  ever-progressive  expression  and  revelation  of  his  infinite  fullness 
12 


178  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

of  being  and  his  complete  determinateness  in  all  the  attributes  of  God. 
Mr.  Mulford  says,  "  In  the  realization  of  personality  as  it  advances 
in  man  toward  the  universal,  this  element  of  individuality  tends  to 
recede  and  disappear.  But  the  personality  of  God,  in  his  own  infinite 
being,  is  not  formed  in  the  differences  of  a  finite  process,  that  the 
element  of  individuality  should  attach  to  it."  * 

This  belongs  to  those  nebulous  spheres  of  thought  in  which  the  sharp 
distinctions  of  real  being  have  faded  away,  and  the  progress  of  man 
towards  unity  with  God  can  be  conceived  only  as  a  gradual  loss  of 
his  own  individual  being  in  his  progress  towards  absorption  into  the 
misty  homogeneousness  of  the  Absolute,  f 

VI.  The  distinction  of  science  into  physical  science  and  metaphysi- 
cal, has  its  origin  and  necessity  at  the  beginning  of  human  knowledge  in 
perceptive  intuition.  In  this,  as  we  have  seen,  the  knowledge  of  being 
in  its  modes  of  existence  originates.  We  have  seen  that  self-conscious- 
ness and  sense-perception,  in  one  and  the  same  act,  reveal  to  man 
himself  and  his  environment.  Here,  therefore,  in  the  very  beginning 
of  human  knowledge  are  the  origin  and  necessity  of  this  twofold  dis- 
tinction of  science. 

Accordingly  we  find  that  human  thought  from  the  beginning  has 
flowed  in  these  two  channels.  In  some  ages  men's  thinking  has  been 
chiefly  occupied  with  the  one ;  in  other  ages  with  the  other ;  and  from 
time  to  time  with  controversies  as  to  the  legitimate  relations  of  the  two. 
But  always  the  human  mind  busies  itself  with  both.  Complete  positiv- 
ism, the  theory  that  human  knowledge  is  confined  to  sensible  pheno- 
mena, is  incompetent  for  physical  science  as  really  as  for  metaphysical, 
and  the  scientific  mind  has  never  been  able  to  confine  its  investigations 
within  those  narrow  limits.  Boole  says :  "  The  particular  question  of 
the  constitution  of  the  intellect  has  attracted  the  efforts  of 


*  Republic  of  God :  p.  32. 

f  The  maxim,  "  Omnis  determinatio  negatio  est,"  is  commonly  attributed  to  Spi- 
noza. I  have  not,  however,  noticed  it  formally  stated  in  his  writings.  In  letter  40 
(to  an  unknown  correspondent)  he  says  :  "  If  the  nature  of  that  being  is  determined 
and  conceived  as  determined,  that  nature  is  conceived  as  not  existing  beyond  those 
bounds  (terminos) ;  which  is  contrary  to  its  definition  "  as  infinite.  Evidently  he  de- 
ludes himself  here  with  the  conception  of  a  body  bounded  in  space,  which  necessarily 
excludes  all  bodies  beyond  its  bounds.  In  letter  41  he  says  that  determination  denotes 
nothing  positive  but  only  the  privation  of  existence,  and  therefore  whatever  exists 
cannot  be  determinate ;  which  would  imply  that  it  cannot  exist  in  any  definite 
mode.  Elsewhere  also  his  reasoning  rests  on  the  assumption  that  the  maxim  is  true. 
But  he  seems  to  be  inconsistent  with  it  when  he  ascribes  attributes  and  modes  of 
existence  to  the  one  and  only  substance  and  so  identifies  it  with  the  universe;  and 
when  he  determines  it  by  his  definition,  "Natura  naturans  et  natura  naturata  in 
identitate  est  Deus."  And  Proposition  IX.  of  the  Ethics,  already  cited,  seems  to 
enunciate  a  principle  contradictory  of  the  maxim. 


BEIXG  AXD  ITS  MODES  OF  EXISTENCE.  179 

speculative  ingenuity  in  every  age.  For  it  not  only  addresses  itself  to 
the  desire  of  knowledge  which  the  greatest  masters  of  ancient 
thought  believed  to  be  innate  in  our  species,  but  it  adds  to  the  ordinary 
strength  of  this  motive  the  inducement  of  a  human  and  personal  in- 
terest. A  genuine  devotion  to  truth  is,  indeed,  seldom  partial  in  its 
aims,  but  while  it  prompts  to  expatiate  over  the  fair  fields  of  outward 
observation,  forbids  to  neglect  the  study  of  our  own  faculties.  Even  in 
ages  the  most  devoted  to  material  interests,  some  portion  of  the  current 
of  thought  has  been  reflected  inwards,  and  the  desire  to  comprehend 
that  by  which  all  else  is  comprehended,  has  only  been  baffled  in  order 
to  be  renewed.  It  is  probable  that  Jhis  pertinacity  of  effort  would  not 
have  been  maintained  among  sincere  inquirers  after  truth,  had  the  con- 
viction been  general  that  such  inquiries  are  hopelessly  barren."  * 

*Laws  of  Thought,  p.  400. 


CHAPTER    VIII. 


THE    TRUE:    THE    FIRST    ULTIMATE    REALITY    KNOWN 

THROUGH    RATIONAL    INTUITION:     NORM    OR 

STANDARD  OF  THINKING  AND  KNOWING. 


§  32.    The  five  ultimate  realities  known  through  rational 

Intuition. 

IN  rational  intuition  the  mind  comes  in  sight  of  reality  of  which 
neither  reflective  thought  nor  presentative  intuition  can  of  themselves 
give  any  knowledge.  The  ultimate  genera  of  the  realities  thus  given  I 
call  the  Ultimate  Realities  known  through  Rational  Intuition,  and  our 
ideas  of  them  I  call  Ultimate  Ideas  of  Reason.  They  are  the  Noumena 
in  the  true  sense  of  the  word.  This  word  has,  however,  been  so  ap- 
propriated by  false  philosophy,  that  it  is  difficult  to  divest  it  of  the 
erroneous  meaning  thus  attached  to  it  and  I  do  not  attempt  to  re- 
claim it. 

The  Ultimate  Realities  known  in  rational  intuition,  which  I  shall 
consider,  are  five : — 

The  True,  the  contrary  of  which  is  the  Absurd ; 

The  Right,  the  contrary  of  which  is  the  Wrong ; 

The  Perfect,  the  contrary  of  which  is  the  Imperfect ; 

The  Good  determined  by  the  standard  of  Reason  as  having  true 
worth  or  as  worthy  of  the  pursuit  and  enjoyment  of  a  rational  being, 
the  contrary  of  which  is  the  Unworthy,  the  Worthless,  or  the  Evil. 

The  Absolute  or  Unconditioned,  the  contrary  of  which  is  the  Finite 
or  Conditioned. 

The  four  first  are  the  Norms  or  Standards  of  Reason  and  are  classed 
together.  They  are  the  basis  of  Mathematics,  of  Logic,  and  of  Specula- 
tive, Ethical,  ^Esthetic  and  Teleological  Philosophy.  The  fifth  as  the 
Unconditioned  and  All-conditioning  One  stands  by  itself  and  is  the 
basis  of  Theology. 

The  four  first  are  norms  or  standards  by  which  Reason  estimates 
and  judges  beings  in  all  their  modes  and  actions.  The  True  is  the 
rational  norm  or  standard  of  thinking  and  knowing ;  the  Right  is  the 
norm  of  efficient  action,  personal  or  impersonal ;  the  Perfect,  of  the 
creations  of  thought  and  their  realization  by  action  ;  the  Good,  of  all 
180 


FIRST  ULTIMATE  IDEA   OF  REASON:    THE  TRUE.  181 

that  is  acquired,  possessed  and  enjoyed.  The  third  of  Kant's  three 
questions,  "What  can  I  know?  "What  shall  I  do?  "What  may  I 
hope  ?  "  must  be  divided  into  two :  "  What  may  I  become  ?"  "  What 
may  I  acquire  and  enjoy?"  The  four  norms  correspond  to  these  four 
questions ;  the  true  is  the  rational  norm  or  standard  of  what  a  man 
may  know,  the  Right,  of  what  he  may  do,  the  Perfect,  of  what  he  may 
becomo,  and  the  Good,  of  what  he  may  acquire  and  enjoy. 

We  also  apply  these  standards  to  nature.  In  so  doing  we  assume 
that  nature  itself  is  the  expression  of  Reason  and  therefore  can  be 
judged  by  the  standards  of  Reason: — the  True,  the  Right,  the 
Perfect,  and  the  Good.  If  Nature  is  not  the  expression  of  rational 
thought  there  is  no  propriety  nor  significance  in  judging  it  by  the 
standards  of  rational  thought.  When  we  judge  of  nature  by  these 
norms  or  standards  of  Reason  the  questions  are : — Does  it  express  or 
reveal  truth  ?  Is  it  ordered  under  law  ?  Does  it  realize  or  tend  to  realize 
ideals  of  perfection  ?  Is  it  productive  of  good  ? 

The  ancient  classification,  the  True,  the  Beautiful  and  the  Good,  is 
inadequate.  I  have  substituted  the  Perfect  instead  of  the  Beautiful  as 
a  more  correct  designation  of  that  idea  and  comprehending  all  that 
belongs  under  it,  of  which  visible  beauty  is  but  a  part.  I  have  added 
The  Right.  Plato,  to  whom  this  classification  of  the  True,  the  Beau- 
tiful and  the  Good  is  commonly  ascribed,  attempted  to  develop  the  idea 
of  right  from  the  good,  and  sometimes  seems  to  resolve  virtue  into  ex- 
pediency. The  idea  of  the  right,  however,  appears  sometimes  instead 
of  the  true.  Pythagoras  is  said  to  have  discoursed  of  the  just,  (dtzdtaw) 
the  beautiful  and  the  good ;  and  in  Plato's  Parmenides,  Socrates  and 
Parmenides  converse  of  the  just  or  right,  (ouaio<S)  the  beautiful  and  the 
good.  The  idea  of  the  right  cannot  be  developed  from  the  idea  of  the 
good  and  is  certainly  entitled,  if  any  thing  is,  to  a  place  among  the 
fundamental  realities  known  in  rational  intuition. 

I  call  attention  again  to  the  fact  that  rational  intuition  does  not  give 
the  knowledge  of  being,  but  only  of  the  unchanging  forms  in  which, 
because  the  universe  is  grounded  in  Reason,  all  beings  exist,  and  in 
which  therefore  Reason,  when  they  are  brought  under  its  knowledge, 
must  know  them  as  existing.  When  any  object,  thought  as  a  being 
existing  thus  or  thus,  is  brought  to  the  notice  of  Reason,  Reason  must 
estimate  it  according  to  its  unchanging  rational  forms,  as  true  or  absurd, 
as  right  or  wrong,  as  perfect  or  imperfect,  as  good  or  evil,  and  as  finite 
or  absolute.  The  intuition  that  Absolute  Being  must  exist  presupposes 
the  knowledge  of  beings.  Beings  are  already  known  to  exist ;  then 
Reason  sees  that  a  Being  that  is  absolute  and  unconditioned  must 
exist.  And  again  I  call  attention  to  the  error  of  abstract  and  scho- 
lastic thought,  that  because  our  knowledge  of  finite  beings  precedes 


182  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF   THEISM. 

our  knowledge  of  the  Absolute  Being,  therefore  finite  beings  must  exist 
before  the  Absolute  Being  exists,  that  the  Absolute  Being  is  dependent 
on  the  finite,  and  man  has  created  God.  This  error  is  possible  only 
when  the  methods  of  concrete  and  scientific  thinking  are  abandoned, 
and  the  notions  and  processeses  of  formal  logic  are  mistaken  for  the 
beings  and  actions  of  the  real  world. 

g  33.    The  first  Norm  or  Standard  of  reason :    the  true : 
The  Norm  or  Standard  of  thinking  and  knowing. 

I.  The  True  is  the  name  of  the  ultimate  genus  which  includes  all  the 
universal  truths  or  primitive  principles  known  in  rational  intuition,  the 
contraries  of  which  are  absurd  ;  they  are  norms  or  standards  regulative 
of  all  thinking  and  knowing.     These  truths  must  be  distinguished  from 
facts,  which  are  enunciations  of  the  knowledge  of  particular  realities 
(/acto).     It  must  be  remembered,  however,  that  this  distinction  is  not 
carefully  made  in  the  common  use  of  language,  scientific  or  popular. 
The  enunciation  of  a  thought  which  is  the  intellectual  equivalent  of 
reality,  particular  or  universal,  is  a  truth.     We  therefore  have  frequent 
occasion  to  distinguish  them  by  a  qualifying  word  or  phrase,  as  univer- 
sal truth  or  truth  of  reason  as  distinguished  from  a  factual  or  empirical 
truth. 

The  word  truth  is  also  used  to  denote  both  the  subjective  knowledge 
and  the  objective  reality  of  which  the  knowledge  is  the  intellectual 
equivalent.  The  truths  of  reason  are  not  merely  subjective  beliefs,  but 
are  objectively  real  in  the  sense  that  they  regulate  all  thought  and 
energy.  The  principle  of  causation  is  not  merely  a  belief  of  my  mind, 
it  is  a  law  of  the  universe.  The  correlation  of  truth  and  reality  appears 
in  the  interchange  of  the  words,  true  and  real,  as  true  gold,  true  piety, 
the  true  God. 

The  English  word  truth  (trow,  trowth),  gives  prominence  to  the  sub- 
jective belief.  The  Greek  dtyftsta,  the  unconcealed,  gives  prominence 
to  the  objective  reality. 

II.  The  truths  of  Reason  have  to  us  objective  reality  as  principles  and 
laws  of  things,  because  they  are,   as   already  set   forth,  constituent 
elements  of  rationality  eternal  in  the  absolute  and  supreme  Reason. 

This  accords  with  the  Platonic  philosophy,  modified  as  it  necessarily 
must  be  by  Christian  Theism.  The  ideas  exist  eternal  and  archetypal 
in  God  the  supreme  reason.  The  rational  ideas  of  the  True,  the  Right, 
the  Perfect  and  the  Good,  and  all  forms  and  ideals  compatible  with 
them  are  eternal  in  the  mind  of  God  as  an  ideal  universe  before  it  exists 
as  the  universe  which  we  perceive.  By  his  power  acting  under  the 
guidance  of  wisdom  and  love  he  gives  expression  to  his  archetypal 


FIRST  ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE  TRUE.  183 

thoughts  in  space  and  time,  and  under  the  other  limitations  of  finite 
things.  He  also  gives  existence  to  finite  beings  constituted  rational  like 
himself  who,  as  in  their  normal  development  they  come  to  know  them- 
selves, know  the  rational  image  of  God.  Here  arises  a  moral  system,  in 
which  God  makes  still  higher  and  grander  expression  of  his  archetypal 
thoughts. 

Plato  sometimes  attains  this  conception.  He  recognizes  the  princi- 
ples of  reason  as  the  remembrance  of  what  the  soul  saw  in  some  former 
state  of  existence  when  in  company  with  God,  truths  in  which  God  is 
and  in  the  knowledge  of  which  he  is  God.*  The  soul  knows  God  in 
these  truths  as  the  eye  by  a  ray  of  light  knows  the  Sun.  Nor,  argues 
Plato,  would  this  be  possible  if  the  eye  were  not  the  one  of  the  senses 
most  like  the  sun.f  This  often  quoted  observation,  that  the  eye's  power 
of  seeing  depends  on  its  likeness  to  the  sun,  is  not  understood  in  its  full 
significance  unless  we  remember  that  the  ancients  supposed  that  the  eye 
when  turned  towards  the  sun  was,  as  it  were,  kindled  by  it  and  emitted 
from  itself  the  rays  by  which  we  see.  So  the  rational  spirit,  because  it 
is  itself  reason,  sees  the  light  of  reason  in  God.  Cicero  also  says  that 
reason  in  man  is  "  participata  similitude  Rationis  seternse"  and  "  vincu- 
lum  Dei  et  hominis."  Augustine  teaches  the  same.  "Being  thus 
admonished  to  return  to  myself,  I  entered  even  into  my  inward  self, 
Thou  being  my  guide ;  and  I  was  able  to  do  so  because  Thou  wast  my 
helper.  And  I  entered  and  beheld  with  the  eye  of  my  soul,  (such  as  it 
was,)  even  above  my  soul,  above  my  mind,  the  Light  unchangeable.  . 
.  .  .  He  who  knows  the  truth,  knows  what  that  Light  is."J  Says 
Thomas  Aquinas :  "  When  we  say  that  we  see  all  things  in  God  and 
according  to  him  judge  of  all  things,  we  mean  that  we  know  and  judge 
all  things  by  participation  in  his  light.  For  the  natural  light  of  reason 
is  itself  a  certain  participation  of  the  divine  light."§  The  doctrine  that 
we  see  all  things  in  God,  whatever  mistiness  and  error  accompany  it  as 
taught  by  Malebranche  and  other  writers,  has  at  least  the  significance 
given  to  it  by  Thomas ;  that  man's  reason  sees  the  light  of  the  universal 
reason  ;  that  what  is  the  True,  the  Right,  the  Perfect,  the  Good  that  has 
true  worth,  to  the  reason  of  man,  is  the  True,  the  Right,  the  Perfect, 
the  Good  which  has  true  worth,  to  the  universal  reason  of  God ;  that 
we  know  truly  even  particular  objects  only  as  existing  in  a  rational 
system,  and  we  know  them  jn  a  system  as  we  know  them  ordered  in 
unity  in  accordance  with  rational  truths,  laws,  ideals  and  ends. 

This  doctrine  that  man  knows  universal  principles  of  reason  which 

*  Phaedrus,  249. 

t  Republic,  B.  VI.  508. 

J  Confessions,  B.  VII.  Chap.  X.  16. 

$  Sumrna  Theologian,  Part  I.     Qusest.  XII.  Art.  XI. 


184  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS   OF  THEISM. 

are  eternal  in  God  the  Supreme  Reason  is  not  a  flight  of  swarming 
enthusiasm,  but  is  accordant  with  common  sense,  is  the  conclusion  of 
the  most  profound  thinkers  in  all  ages,  is  the  necessary  inference  from 
the  most  sober  investigation  of  the  rise  and  processes  of  knowledge 
and  the  laws  of  thought,  and  is  itself  the  basis,  whether  recognized 
or  not,  of  the  possibility  of  science.  They  are  the  flighty  and  heedless 
thinkers  who  deny  this.  So  in  speaking  of  Anaxagoras,  Aristotle  said 
that,  "  the  men  who  first  announced  that  Reason  (you<-)  was  the  cause 
of  the  world  and  of  all  orderly  arrangement  in  nature  no  less  than  in 
living  bodies,  appeared  like  a  man  in  his  sober  senses  in  comparison 
with  those  who  before  had  been  speaking  at  random  and  in  the 
dark."  * 

*•  Quoted  by  Prof.  E,obert  Flint,  History  of  the  Philosophy  of  History  in  France 
and  Germany,  p.  90. 


CHAPTER  IX. 


THE   RIGHT   OR   LAW:    THE   SECOND    ULTIMATE   REALITY 

KNOWN  THROUGH  RATIONAL  INTUITION  :  THE  NORM 

OR  STANDARD  OF  EFFICIENT  ACTION. 


.  General  Significance. 

THE  principles  of  reason  and  all  necessary  inferences  from  them 
when  known  as  regulative  of  power  are  called  laws.  They  are  laws  to 
power  of  every  kind,  intellectual,  physical  and  voluntary. 

I.  They  are  laws  to  intellectual  and  physical  power. 

1.  To  intellectual  and  physical  power  they  are  laws  in  the  sense 
that  they  determine  what   it  is  possible  or  impossible  for  power  to 
effect.     In  these  cases  the  relation  of  the  truth  to  the  power  as  its 
law  is  expressed  by  the  verbs,  must,  can,  cannot,  and  by  the  nouns, 
necessity,  possibility,  impossibility.     In  this  sense  these  truths  are  laws  of 
thought.     The  conclusion  of  a  demonstration  in  geometry  is,  "  It  must 
be  so  " :  it  is  impossible  with  the  demonstration  in  mind  to  think  the 
contrary  to  be  true.      In  the  same  sense  they  are   laws  to   physical 
power.     When  we  see  a  stone  moving  we  know  that  it  must  have  had 
a  cause,  it  is  impossible  it  should  move  without  a  cause.     A  builder 
cannot  make  a  structure  stable,  if  it  is  not  constructed  according  to 
the  principles  of  geometry  and  mechanics ;  it  must  fall.     A  projectile 
of  a  certain  weight  propelled  by  a  certain  force  at  a  certain  angle 
of  elevation  and  meeting  a  certain  resistance  from  the  air  must  de- 
scribe a  certain  curve  hi  its  flight.     All  instances  are  summed  up  in  the 
maxim,  "  The  absurd  cannot  be  real."     No  power  can  give  reality  to 
that  which  contradicts  reason.     Whatever  is  real  is  capable  of  reason- 
able explanation. 

2.  Conformity  of  the  action  of  intellectual  or  physical  power  to  the 
truths  of  reason  as  law,  is  called  right,  non-conformity  is  called  wrong. 
A  boy's  solution  of  an  algebraic  problem  is  right ;   a  steam-engine 
works  right,  that  is,  its  action  is  what  it  must  be  if  in  all  its  parts  it 
is  constructed  according  to  the  principles  of  mechanics. 

3.  The  phrase   '"  law  of  nature "  is  commonly  used  to  denote  an 
observed  uniform  sequence  of  antecedent  and  consequent.     This,  how- 
ever, is  not  a  regulative  principle  of  reason,  but  merely  a  generalized 

185 


186  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

fact.  We  do  not  say,  "  It  must  be  so,"  but  only  that,  so  far  as  observed, 
it  uniformly  is  so.  The  word  law  is  here  used  in  a  secondary  sense ;  it 
does  not  denote  a  true  law  of  reason,  and  we  are  not  concerned  with  it 
in  the  present  discussion.  It  is  important,  however,  to  note  the  dis- 
tinction ;  because  observed  uniform  sequence  is  not  only  dignified  with 
the  name  of  law,  but  also  deified  as  the  cause  which  sufficiently  accounts 
for  the  existence  and  order  of  the  universe. 

4.  Some  laws  of  nature,  which  are  usually  regarded  as  merely  uniform 
sequences,  do  in  reality  rest  on  rational  principles  from  wrhich  they 
derive  all  their  significance  as  laws.  The  law  of  gravitation  is  com- 
monly spoken  of  as  expressing  merely  an  observed  uniform  sequence, 
but  in  truth  this  law  is  not  known  by  experience  but  is  deduced  from 
an  a  priori  mathematical  principle.  The  same  is  true  of  the  law  of  the 
dispersion  of  light.  Also,  when  science  carries  an  observed  sequence 
beyond  the  observed  facts,  the  induction  rests  entirely  on  self-evident 
intuition  of  reason.  Also,  the  laws  of  mechanics  rest  partly  on  the 
law  of  causation  and  partly  on  mathematical  principles  both  of  which 
are  first  principles  of  reason. 

II.  The  principles  of  reason  and  all  necessary  inferences  from  them 
are  also  laws  to  the  will. 

1.  To  the  will  they  are  laws,  in  the  sense  that  they  declare  what  the 
will  in  its  free  action  ought  to  do,  what  is  its  duty  or  obligation.     To 
the  will  the  law  does  not  determine  what  it  is  possible  or  impossible  for 
it  to  effect,  nor  declare  necessity  or  what  the  will  must  do.     Every  man 
is  conscious  that  in  the  exercise  of  free  will  he  can  disobey  law  and  can 
exert  all  his  energies  to  accomplish  ends  contrary  to  reason ;  yet.  every 
man  is  still  conscious  that  the  truth  of  reason  is  a  law  which  he  ought 
to  obey. 

2.  Conformity  of  the  action  of  the  will  with  law  is  right,  its  non- 
conformity is  wrong. 

3.  Truth  known  as  law  to  a  free  will  is  moral  law,  and  conformity  of 
a  will  to  law  is  right  in  the  distinctively  moral  or  ethical  meaning  of 
the  word. 

III.  The  law  to  intellectual  power,  the  law  to  physical  power,  and 
the  law  to  free  will  have  the  common  characteristic  of  law  in  that  each 
is  a  truth  of  reason  known  as  a  law  to  the  action  of  power.     They  are 
the  three  classes  of  rational  laws  or  laws  of  reason.     The  third  differs 
from  the  first  and  second  in  that  it  is  addressed  to  rational  beings  having 
free  will,  it  commands  action  and  requires  obedience,  it  imposes  obliga- 
tion or  duty,  and  it  may  be  obeyed  or  disobeyed ;  but  it  brings  with  it 
no  necessity  of  action.     It  is  moral  law.     On  the  contrary  the  first  and 
second  are  not  laws  to  free  will ;  they  utter  no  command,  they  impose 
no  obligation  or  duty,  they  can  neither  be  obeyed  nor  disobeyed,  they 


SECOND   ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE  RIGHT.         187 

carry  with  them  simply  necessity.  They  are  not  moral  law.  The  word 
right  as  applied  in  each  case  has  the  common  meaning  of  the  conformity 
of  action  to  law ;  but  right  in  its  ethical  sense  denotes  distinctively  the 
conformity  of  the  action  of  a  rational  being  with  law  by  his  own  free 
choice  of  ends  and  determination  of  actions. 

Law  and  Right  have  moral  or  ethical  significance  only  as  applied  to 
rational  beings  determining  by  free  will  their  own  ends  and  actions. 

Reason  knows  itself  as  regulative  of  all  power.  In  respect  to  rational 
free-agents  reason  knows  itself  as  having  authority  to  give  law,  to  com- 
mand obedience,  to  impose  obligation. 

g35.    The  Ethical  Significance  of  Right  and  Law. 

I..  The  ethical  idea  of  right  and  law  arises  in  the  rational  intuition 
that  I  ought  to  act  reasonably,  that  is,  in  accordance  with  the  truths  of 
reason  ;  or,  more  generally  formulated,  "A  rational  being  ought  to  obey 
reason,"  or,  "  what  is  true  to  the  reason  is  a  law  to  the  will."  In  this 
intuition  the  person  comes  to  the  knowledge  of  a  new  reality  which  is 
expressed  in  the  word  ought  and  to  which  the  nouns  corresponding 
are  obligation,  duty,  law.  This  new  reality  is  that  he  exists  under 
law  ;  that  the  universal  principles  and  the  necessary  inferences  from 
them,  which  he  knows  as  truths,  are  laws  which  he  is  under  obliga- 
tion to  obey.  Like  other  intuitions,  this  one  is  practically  operative 
on  his  action  before  he  formulates  it  in  reflective  thought  or  even 
recognizes  it  as  a  judgment.  But  as  he  reflects  he  finds  that  what 
he  knows  as  true  to  his  reason  he  knows  to  be  a  law  to  action ;  he 
finds  himself  saying  I  ought,  and  learns  the  significance  of  obliga- 
tion and  duty ;  he  finds  himself  approving  some  actions  because  con- 
formed to  principles  which  he  knows  as  true ;  and  this  common 
quality  of  these  acts  he  calls  right,  and  the  contrary  quality  he  calls 
wrong.  Thus  the  ideas  of  right  and  wrong  rise  directly  from  rational 
intuition.  Without  rational  intuition  man  could  never  have  known 
the  difference  of  right  and  wrong  or  had  any  idea  of  law,  duty  and 
obligation. 

II.  Significance  of  ethical  terms. 

1.  Ought,  obligation,  duty.  Like  all  words  designating  knowledge 
given  directly  in  intuition,  these  terms  cannot  be  analytically  defined. 
They  can  be  understood  only  by  intuitively  knowing  them.  It  is  a 
sphere  of  reality  entirely  unique  and  no  definition  or  explanation  can 
give  any  idea  of  it  to  a  being  who  is  incapable  of  rational  intuition. 
Ethical  terms  can  be  explained  only  by  referring  to  the  consciousness 
of  those  who  have  ethical  knowledge. 

I  have  already  explained  the  three  words,  as  far  as  it  is  possible,  in 
indicating  their  origin. 


188  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

2.  Right.      Ought  expresses  the  relation  between  a  rational  being 
acting   freely   and   the'  truth   of  reason.     Right,  as  an  adjective,   is 
predicated    of    action    or    character    which    is    conformed    to    the 
truth  of  reason.     The  Right,  as  a  noun,  is  the  name  of  this  common 
and  essential  quality  of  such  character  or  action ;   it  means  the  con- 
formity of  action  or  character  to  the  truth  of  reason,  known  as  law  to 
action. 

Holiness  and  sin,  virtue  and  vice,  as  denoting  character  and  action, 
are  properly  predicated  of  persons.  The  man  is  virtuous  or  vicious. 
Right  and  wrong  are  more  properly  predicated  immediately  of  cha- 
racter and  action ;  as,  virtue  is  right,  vice  is  wrong.  We  sometimes 
say,  however,  the  man  is  right,  meaning  right  in  character  or  action ; 
for  right  and  wrong  have  no  ethical  significance  except  as  related  to 
the  action  or  character  of  a  rational  free  agent. 

Right  is  also  used  in  a  different  application,  as  correlative  with  duty. 
If  I  owe  five  dollars,  it  is  my  duty  to  pay  it  to  my  creditor  and  his 
right  to  receive  it.  The  rights  of  one  are  correlative  to  the  duty  of 
another.  No  man  has  rights  in  respect  to  others  any  farther  than 
they  owe  duties  to  him.  If  all  men  did  all  their  duties,  all  men 
would  have  all  their  rights.  Selfishness  inflames  a  man  to  loud  de- 
claration of  his  own  rights,  while  he  thinks  little  of  his  own  duties. 
Christ  puts  it  the  opposite  way.  He  requires  universal  love;  he 
would  right  human  wrongs  by  teaching  men  to  think  first  of  their 
own  duties  rather  than  of  their  own  rights. 

3.  Law  is  truth  considered  as  that  to  which  rational  beings  are  under 
obligation  to  conform  their  characters  and  action.      When  I  know 
myself  under  obligation  to  conform  my  action  to  truth  I  know  the 
truth  as  a  law  to  my  action.     Law  is  correlative  to  obligation. 

4.  Authority  is  the  right  to  declare  and  enforce  law.    The  right  of  an 
individual  to  receive  payment  of  a  debt  or  any  service  due,  is  a  right 
derived  from  the  law  to  which  both  parties  are  subject ;  it  is  not  the 
right  to  declare  and  enforce  law.     This  belongs  only  to  a  government 
and  is  called  authority. 

The  reason,  as  it  reveals  itself  in  the  consciousness  of  an  individual, 
reveals  itself  as  having  authority  to  command.  Hence  Bishop  Butler 
recognizes  authority  as  the  distinctive  characteristic  of  the  con- 
science. *  But  while  the  individual's  conscience  has  authority  to 
command  him,  it  does  not  command  others,  nor  give  the  individual 
the  right  to  do  so.  He  must  indeed  see  that  what  is  a  universal 
truth  to  reason  is  a  law  to  all  men;  he  may  instruct  others  as  to 
their  duty  to  obey  it  But  he  has  no  right  to  command  or  to  en- 

*  Sermons  on  Human  Nature,  IL 


SECOND   ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON: 

force  obedience.     That  right  is  called  authority.     Thaf 
only  in  a  government. 

5.  Government,  in  its  primary  meaning,  is  the  action  of  will  in  the 
light  and  by  the  authority  of  reason,  declaring  the  truth  of  reason  as 
law  and  enforcing  obedience  by  the  punishment  of  transgressors. 
This  is  the  most  abstract  definition  of  government  possible. 

Law  which  is  the  truth  of  reason,  is  distinguished  from  government 
which  involves  the  action  of  will.  Law  being  of  the  reason,  will  can 
neither  create,  change  nor  annul  it.  Law  is  above  will ;  will  is  always 
subject  to  law.  It  is  not  the  function  even  of  government  to  create  law, 
but  only  to  discover,  declare  and  enforce  the  laws  which  are  truths  of 
reason ;  and  in  so  doing  government  itself  must  obey  the  unchanging 
laws  of  reason.  The  authority  of  government,  or  its  right  to  govern 
rests  on  the  reason.  The  theory  of  popular  government,  as  Judge 
McLean  expressed  it  in  one  of  his  opinions,  is  that  law  is  supposed  to 
declare  "  the  collective  reason  of  the  people."  The  authority  of  govern- 
ment rests  ultimately  in  God,  the  Supreme  and  Absolute  Eeason. 

We  must  distinguish  law,  considered  as  the  eternal  principles  of 
right,  from  statutes  or  enactments,  in  which  government  declares  how 
these  principles  are  to  be  applied  to  particular  cases.  Government 
must  enact  statutes  to  meet  particular  circumstances  and  change  or 
annul  them  as  changing  circumstances  require.  But  even  here  it  must 
use  its  best  wisdom  to  make  enactments  accordant  with  truth  and 
righteousness. 

Ethics  is  the  science  of  law  both  as  unchanging  principles  and  as  regu- 
lative of  conduct  in  specific  cases ;  both  as  unchangeable  principles  in  the 
reason,  and  as  declared  and  enforced  by  government.  Jurisprudence 
also  discusses  the  principles  of  right  and  their  application  to  conduct, 
but  is  confined  to  the  authority  and  enactments  of  civil  government. 
Thus  Austin  begins  his  "  Jurisprudence "  with  a  discussion  of  the 
grounds  of  the  authority  of  government  and  law  and  of  the  obligation 
to  obedience.  It  is  one  of  the  ablest  vindications  of  the  erroneous 
theory  of  Utilitarianism.  Jurisprudence  is  a  branch  of  ethics.  Austin 
recognizes  this;  but  uses  the  phrase  "positive  law"  in  the  sense  of 
enactment  or  statute :  "  The  science  of  ethics  consists  of  two  depart- 
ments, one  relating  specially  to  positive  law,  the  other  relating  specially 
to  positive  morality.  The  department  which  relates  to  positive  law  is 
commonly  styled  the  science  of  legislation ;  the  department  which  relates 
specially  to  positive  morality  is  commonly  called  the  science  of  morals."  * 

III.  Ethical  ideas  and  moral  distinctions,  being  known  by  rational 
intuition,  are  of  the  highest  certainty. 

*  Jurisprudence,  Vol.  i.  p.  116. 


190  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

The  objection  against  the  validity  of  our  knowledge  of  moral  dis- 
tinctions is  stated  by  Hume :  "  In  every  system  of  morality  which  I 
have  hitherto  met  with  ...  .  the  author  proceeds  for  some  time 
in  the  ordinary  way  of  reasoning ;  .  .  .  .  when  of  a  sudden  I  am 
surprised  to  find  that  instead  of  the  usual  copula  of  propositions,  is  and 
is  not,  I  meet  with  no  proposition  that  is  not  connected  with  an  ought 
or  an  ought  not.  This  change  is  imperceptible,  but  is,  however,  of  the 
last  consequence.  For  as  this  ought  or  ought  not  expresses  some  new 
relation  or  affirmation,  it  is  necessary  that  it  should  be  observed  and 
explained ;  and  at  the  same  time  a  reason  should  be  given'  for  what 
seems  altogether  inconceivable,  how  this  new  relation  can  be  a  deduc- 
tion from  others  which  are  entirely  different  from  it.  But  as  authors 
do  not  commonly  use  this  precaution,  I  shall  presume  to  recommend  it 
to  readers ;  and  am  persuaded  that  this  small  attention  would  subvert 
all  the  vulgar  systems  of  morality,  and  let  us  see  that  the  distinction 
of  vice  and  virtue  is  not  founded  on  the  relations  of  objects  nor  is  per- 
ceived by  the  reason."  *  This  objection  is  already  answered.  It  is  true 
that  the  idea  expressed  in  the  ought  and  the  ought  not  is  different  from 
that  expressed  in  the  is  and  is  not;  and  it  is  a  unique  idea  different 
from  all  others.  It  is  also  true  that  it  cannot  be  deduced  from  any 
other  idea,  though  it  presupposes  the  knowledge  of  principles  or  truths 
of  reason.  But  it  is  not  true  that  philosophers  surreptitiously  intro- 
duce it  without  declaring  its  distinctive  significance  and  its  origin.  It 
originates  in  rational  intuition.  And  I  have  already  demonstrated  that 
rational  intuitions  are  of  the  highest  certainty,  that  on  their  validity 
as  knowledge  all  reasoning  and  all  science  depend,  and  that  they  are 
constituent  elements  of  all  rational  intelligence.  In  these  our  know- 
ledge of  moral  distinctions  is  rooted  deep  in  our  constitution  as  rational 
beings  and  ramified  beneath  the  entire  outgrowth  of  knowledge. 

Besides  it  must  be  noticed  that  Hume's  objection  recoils  on  himself. 
Since  human  thought  cannot  escape  using  the  ought  and  the  ought  not, 
and  there  is  nothing  in  his  philosophy  which  can  account  for  this,  the 
true  inference  is  that  his  philosophy  is  contrary  to  reason  and  false,  not 
that  moral  distinctions  are  unfounded. 

$36.  Moral  Law  Universal,  Immutable,  Imperative. 

I.  Law  is  universal,  immutable  and  imperative  because  it  is  the  uni- 
versal and  immutable  truth  of  Reason  known  as  law  to  action. 

It  is  essential  in  the  idea  of  law  that  it  be  universal  and  un- 
changeable, the  law  for  all  times  and  all  places.  I  refer  to  law  in  its 
principles,  not  to  the  rules  for  applying  those  principles  to  determine 

*  Treatise  of  Human  Nature,  B.  iii.  Part  i.  Section  1. 


SECOND  ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE  RIGHT.         191 

the  right  or  wrong  of  outward  acts  under  changing  circumstances. 
But  in  determining  what  is  duty  in  these  details  there  must  be  appeal 
to  universal  and  immutable  principles  or  we  can  never  determine  the 
right  or  wrong  of  particular  actions,  just  as  reasoning  however  rami- 
fied must  be  regulated  by  universal  principles,  or  it  can  never  con- 
clude in  a  true  inference. 

It  is  equally  essential  in  the  idea  of  law  that  it  be  imperative.  It  is 
not  advice  or  persuasion  but  command.  It  does  not  tell  us  what  is 
agreeable  or  profitable,  but  what  is  obligatory  and  right.  It  is  the 
supreme  and  final  standard  of  right  from  which  there  is  no  appeal  and 
which  excludes  all  right  to  question  or  disobey.  If  there  is  any  dif- 
ference between  right  and  wrong  there  must  be  a  law  universally, 
unchangeably,  supremely  right. 

This  universality,  immutability  and  imperativeness  are  essential  in 
law  because  law  is  universal  and  immutable  truth  recognized  as  law 
to  action.  It  is  either  some  primitive  principle  known  in  rational 
intuition  or  some  truth  inferred  from  it.  Private  opinion  does  not  con- 
stitute the  law  of  right.  A  particular  fact  does  not.  If  I  know  that  a 
particular  course  of  action  leads  me  into  the  fire,  that  fact  is  not  a  law 
forbidding  me  to  go  into  the  fire ;  for  it  may  be  a  martyr-fire.  But 
universal  truth,  whenever  it  bears  on  the  will's  determination,  is  a  law 
to  the  will ;  and  the  law  is  as  universal  and  as  immutable  as  the  truth. 
It  is  also  imperative ;  for  law  is  nothing  else  but  truth  recognized 
as  imperative  to  will.  The  it  is  of  a  fact  can  issue  only  in  an  unregu- 
lated /  will  It  is  only  the  must  be  of  universal  truth  which  resolves 
into  I  ought. 

II.  The  law  as  universal,  immutable  and  imperative  implies  the 
existence  of  God,  the  Supreme  and  absolute  Reason  in  whom  the  Law 
is  eternal.  We  have  seen  that  this  is  implied  in  the  idea  of  the  True. 
It  is  implied  also  and  even  more  impressively  in  the  idea  of  the  Right; 
for  in  this  the  voice  of  the  Supreme  lawgiver  speaks  in  every  man's 
consciousness  uttering  a  law  transcending  him  and  imperative  on  him. 
As  a  universal  truth  of  reason  known  as  law  to  action,  he  knows  it  as 
law,  not  to  himself  alone,  but  to  all  rational  beings ;  yet  he  is  conscious 
that  he  is  not  its  author  and  has  not  authority  to  enforce  obedience  on 
others.  There  must  then  be  a  lawgiver  above  all  men  and  having 
authority  to  command  all.  The  truths  and  laws  recognized  by  man's 
reason  are  without  significance  and  reality  as  universal  truths  and 
laws  except  as  they  are  truths  and  laws  eternal  in  a  Reason  absolute 
and  supreme,  and  thus  regulative  of  all  thought  and  energy  and  domi- 
nant throughout  the  universe. 

The  Absolute  Being,  however,  is  not  a  'merely  speculative  Reason, 
seeing  in  itself  all  truth,  law,  perfection  and  good,  but  an  energizing 


192  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

Reason  realizing  in  finite  creations  the  archetypes  of  all  truth,  right, 
perfection  and  good  which  it  sees  eternal  in  itself.  And  these  arche- 
types expressed  and  realized  are  the  constitution  of  the  universe. 

III.  Hence  all  wrong-doing  has  falsehood  and  absurdity  underlying 
it  as  its  intellectual  basis.     Selfishness,  if  justified,  would  imply  that 
the  selfish  person  is  supreme  and  that  God  and  all  creatures  exist  to 
serve  him,  while  he  serves  no  one,  an  error  more  extravagant  than  the 
old  astronomy  that  the  planets  and  sun  and  all  the  stars  revolve  daily 
around  the  earth.     Hence  the  Bible  calls  the  transgressor  indiscrimi- 
nately a  sinner  or  a  foel. 

IV.  Hence  law  requires  conformity  to  the  fundamental  realities  in 
the  constitution  of  things.    Off  Nova  Scotia,  on  the  route  of  steamships 
to  England,  is  Sable  Island.     It  is  but  a  speck  on  the  chart,  but  that 
speck  represents  reality ;  the  navigator  must  shape  his  course  to  avoid 
it  or  be  dashed  in  pieces  on  it.     So  truth  is  correlative  to  reality  ;  law 
declares  the  deepest  realities  of  existence  and  bids  us  shape  our  course 
in  reference  to  them  or  be  miserably  wrecked.     It  is   a   command 
requiring  conformity  to  the  fundamental  truths  of  reason  and  the  fun- 
damental realities  of  the  constitution  of  things. 

V.  Action  in  transgression  of  law  must  issue  in  failure  and  loss. 
Man,  in  the  exercise  of  his  reason,  may  transgress  moral  law.     Moral 
law  does  not  declare  the  certainty  or  necessity  of  an  action,  but  only  its 
obligation.     But  if  man  transgresses  moral   law  he   is  spending   his 
strength  in  trying  to  give  reality  to   an  absurdity.     Selfishness,  for 
example,  is  a  continuous  endeavor  to  attain  the  highest  good  by  selfish 
getting  and  selfish  indulgence.    But  the  efforts  of  a  life  thus  spent  must 
issue  in  failure.     A  man  may  spend  his  estate  and  his  life  in  trying  to 
make  a  machine  on  the  principle  of  a  perpetual  and  self-perpetuating 
motion.     But  he  only  wastes  his  estate  and  life  in  trying  to  realize  the 
absurd  and  impossible.     So  a  man  may  spend  his  life  in  sinning,  but  it 
can  be  only  a  wasted  life.     He  "  loses  himself  or  is  cast  away."    I  have 
called  the  truths  of  reason,  which  determine  what  is  possible  for  power 
to  effect,  the  "flammantia  moenia  mundi."     If  a  man  flings  himself 
against  these  burning  barriers  he  flings  himself  into  the  fire  everlasting. 
Truth  is  the  fire  of  hell. 

VI.  Law  as  imperative  implies  that  it  is  enforced  by  punishment 
inflicted  by  the  government  for  disobedience.     This  is  of  the  essence  of 
law ;  otherwise  it  ceases  to  be  law  and  weakens  into  advice.     This  is 
attested  in  the  moral  constitution  of  men  in  the  consciousness  of  ill-desert 
for  sin.    And  it  is  no  capricious  or  arbitrary  infliction,  but  is  necessary 
in  the  constitution  of  the  universe.     Thou  shall  waits  always  terrible 
behind  I  ought. 

VII.  We  have  now  the  answer  to  the  common  objection  that  intui- 


SECOND   ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE  RIGHT.         193 

tive  ethics  is  empty  of  significance ;  that  its  fundamental  principle  is  an 
identical  proposition,  "  Right  is  right  because  it  is  right."  The  prin- 
ciple is,  "  What  is  true  to  the  reason  is  law  to  the  will."  It  has  for 
content  the  truths  of  reason.  It  rests  on  the  fact  that  man,  being  in  the 
image  of  God,  is  endowed  with  reason  and  free  will,  and  that  reason, 
the  same  in  kind  everywhere  and  always,  is  supreme  and  absolute  in 
God.  The  fundamental  principle  of  intuitive  ethics  has  for  content  all 
that  is  true  to  human  reason,  and  all  that  is  true  to  the  divine  reason,  so 
far  as  known  to  man,  and  all  that  is  fundamental  in  the  constitution  of 
the  universe.  Nor  are  we  obliged  to  say  truth  is  true  because  it  is 
true ;  it  is  true  because  it  is  eternal  in  the  absolute  reason,  because  it  is 
the  truth  in  which  the  universe  is  grounded  and  of  which  the  universe 
is  the  expression.  Truth  is  concrete  throughout  to  its  primal  essence,  as 
it  is  eternal  and  archetypal  in  the  absolute  Reason. 

i  37.    Intuitive  Ethics  distinguished  from  Erroneous 
Theories. 

I.  It  is  unnecessary  to  delay  on  theories  like  those  of  Diderot  and 
Mandeville,  which  ascribe  the  origin  of  moral  ideas  to  association  of 
ideas  and  to  education ;  for  these  deny  the  reality  of  moral  obligation. 
I  have  already  shown  that  the  association  of  ideas  in  the  experience  of 
an  individual  cannot  account  for  the  necessary  beliefs  of  reason. 

II.  The  true  Ethics  is  distinguished  from  theories  which  attempt  to 
derive  the  idea  of  right  from  that  of  happiness  or  the  highest  good. 

The  ideas  of  right  and  obligation  have  their  origin  in  reason  and  have 
a  unique  and  distinctive  meaning ;  the  ethical  ideas  cannot  be  derived 
from  nor  identified  with  the  idea  of  happiness  or  good.  Every  theory 
which  attempts  to  derive  the  ethical  ideas  frflm  the  idea  of  happiness  or 
good  loses  their  essential  distinctive  significance,  and  resolves  the  right 
into  the  agreeable  or  the  expedient.  Thus  Locke  resolves  all  moral 
distinctions  into  the  distinction  of  pleasure  and  pain  :  "  We  love,  desire, 
rejoice  and  hope  only  in  respect  of  pleasure ;  we  hate,  fear  and  grieve 
only  in  respect  of  pain,  ultimately."  And  he  exemplifies  what  love  is, 
from  the  love  of  grapes :  "  When  a  man  declares  ....  that  he 
loves  grapes,  it  is  no  more  but  that  the  taste  of  grapes  delights  him."* 
Theories  of  this  kind  annul  all  essential  and  distinctive  significance  of 
obligation  and  duty,  of  right  and  wrong,  of  law  and  authority ;  they 
exclude  the  very  ideas  of  right  and  obligation ;  they  lose  the  right  in 
the  agreeable  or  at  best  in  the  prudential. 

III.  The  true  ethics,  affirming  that  moral  distinctions  originate  in 

*  Essay  concerning  Human  Understanding,  B.  II.,  chap.  20,  sect.  14,  4.    See  chap. 
28,  sect.  5-14,  and  chap.  21,  sects.  55,  70,  and  B.  I.,  chap.  3. 
13 


194  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF   THEISM. 

the  reason,  must  be  distinguished  from  theories  that  these  distinctions 
originate  in  the  feelings ;  that  our  moral  ideas  arise  from  the  feelings 
which  as  motives  impel  us  to  certain  acts  as  right  and  deter  from  others 
as  wrong,  and  which  react  in  emotions,  as  in  remorse  for  wrong-doing 
and  satisfaction  in  right-doing. 

This,  however,  would  be  false  psychology.  For  a  feeling  presup- 
poses some  reality  present  to  consciousness  or  contemplated  in  thought. 
Sugar  is  not  saccharine  because  it  is  agreeable  to  the  taste ;  it  is  agree- 
able to  the  taste  because  it  is  saccharine.  So  virtue  is  not  right  be- 
cause it  gives  satisfaction ;  but  it  gives  satisfaction  because  it  is  right. 
Vice  is  not  wrong  because  it  occasions  remorse ;  it  occasions  remorse 
because  it  is  wrong. 

Moral  feelings,  whether  motives  or  emotions,  presuppose  the  know- 
ledge of  moral  distinctions.  If  I  am  conscious  of  any  motive  to  do 
right,  I  must  first  have  an  idea  of  right  and  some  standard  of  judgment 
by  which  to  distinguish  right  from  wrong.  If  I  feel  remorse  for  wrong 
doing  or  complacency  in  right  doing,  these  feelings  presuppose  know- 
ledge of  right  and  wrong.  It  is  to  be  observed,  however,  that  in  the 
primitive  regulative  action  of  intuition  before  it  is  formulated  or  dis- 
tinctly recognized  in  thought,  the  feeling  and  the  intuition  coexist.  In 
this  sense  it  is  true  that  feeling  is  a  kind  of  knowledge. 

If  the  moral  feelings  arise  before  any  knowledge  of  right  and  wrong, 
then,  on  account  of  the  absence  of  that  knowledge,  there  is  nothing  to 
distinguish  them  as  moral;  they  are  known  merely  as  agreeable  or 
disagreeable  feelings ;  and  the  only  generalization  from  them  possible 
would  be  that  some  conduct  is  agreeable  and  other  conduct  disagree- 
able. And  there  would  be  no  immutable  distinction  of  right  and 
wrong,  but  it  would  fluctuate  with  the  feelings.  This  theory  logically 
sinks  back  into  the  theory  which  derives  the  idea  of  right  from  happi- 
ness and  thus  loses  it  in  the  agreeable.  Built  on  the  unstable  fluctua- 
tions of  feeling,  the  theory  can  never  attain  a  rational  and  immutable 
distinction  of  right  and  wrong. 

This  Hume  perceived.  Alluding  to  a  passage  in  his  Treatise  of 
Human  Nature  (Book  III.  Part  1,  Sect.  1,)  in  which  he  maintains  that 
moral  ideas  originate  not  in  the  reason  but  in  the  feelings,  he  wrote  to 
Hutcheson :  "  Is  not  this  a  little  too  strong  ?  .  .  .  .1  wish  from  my 
heart  I  could  avoid  concluding  that  since  morality,  according  to  your 
opinion  as  well  as  mine,  is  determined  merely  by  sentiment,  it  regards 
only  human  nature  and  human  life.  ...  If  morality  were  deter- 
mined by  reason,  that  is  the  same  to  all  rational  beings ;  but  nothing 
but  experience  can  assure  us  that  the  sentiments  are  the  same.  What 
experience  have  we  in  regard  to  superior  beings  ?  How  can  we  ascribe 
to  them  any  sentiments  at  all  ?  They  have  implanted  these  sentiments 


SECOND  ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE  RIGHT.         195 

in  us  for  the  conduct  of  life,  like  our  bodily  sensations,  which  they 
possess  not  themselves."* 

IV.  Closely  allied  to  the  foregoing  is  Hutcheson's  theory  that  moral 
ideas  originate  in  a  special  mental  faculty  called  the  Moral  Sense. 
This  moral  sense,  however,  when  examined,  is  found  to  denote  only  the 
susceptibility  to  moral  motives  and  emotions.     These  Hutcheson  con- 
ceives of  as  analogous  to   the  sensations  of  which  we  are  conscious 
through  the  five  senses.     Hence  the  susceptibility  to  these  moral  mo- 
tives and  emotions  he  regards  as  a  sort  of  additional  sense,  and  calls  it 
the  Moral  Sense.     This  theory  is  one  of  those  which  ascribe  the  origin 
of  moral  ideas  to   the  feelings.     Its  calling  these  feelings   a  special 
faculty  and  naming  it  the  Moral  Sense,  does  not  annul  its  identity 
with  those  theories  nor  exempt  it  from  the  objections  which  demon- 
strate their  inadequacy. 

I  shall  use  the  word  conscience  to  denote  the  whole  moral  constitu- 
tion, including  both  the  capacity  for  rational  intuition  of  right  and 
wrong  and  for  moral  motives  and  emotions. 

V.  True  ethics  is  distinguished  from  the  theory  that  the  distinction 
of  right  and  wrong  rests  ultimately  on  the  will  of  God.     As  eternal  in 
Reason,  the  distinction  of  right  and  wrong  and  the  law  requiring  the 
right  are  not  originated  by  any  fiat  of  will,  human  or  divine.     Law  is 

'eternal  in  God  the  supreme  reason,  and  the  will  of  God  always  acts  in 
conformity  with  the  law  eternal  in  the  Reason  of  God.  God's  will  is 
his  reason  energizing.  It  is  essential  to  all  true  and  wholesome 
theology  as  well  as  to  all  true  and  wholesome  ethics  to  recognize  the 
absolute  supremacy  of  reason,  to  recognize  the  universe  as  having  its 
ultimate  ground  in  reason  and  not  in  will.  If  will  is  supreme,  morality 
and  religion  are  no  longer  possible.  The  only  basis  for  ethics  would 
be  the  maxim  that  might  makes  right ;  the  only  object  of  worship 
would  be  an  almighty  power  unregulated  by  reason,  unenlightened  by 
intelligence,  and  yet  capricious  because  above  all  law,  "  Monstrum 
horrendum,  informe,  ingens,  cui  lumen  ademptum," — the  most  terrific 
being  that  the  imagination  of  man  can  conceive. 

Herbert  Spencer  says,  "  Religious  creeds,  established  and  dissenting, 
all  embody  the  belief  that  right  and  wrong  are  right  and  wrong  simply 
by  divine  enactment."  Theologians  "assert  that  in  the  absence  of 
belief  in  a  deity  there  would  be  no  moral  guidance ;  and  this  amounts 
to  asserting  that  moral  truths  have  no  other  origin  than  the  will  of 
God."  f  He  here  assumes  that  there  is  no  way  in  which  moral  dis- 
tinctions can  depend  on  God  except  as  they  depend  on  a  fiat  of 'God's 

*  Life  and  Correspondence,  by  J.  H.  Burton,  I.  119. 
t  Data  of  Ethics,  p.  50,  §  15. 


196  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

will.  It  never  occurs  to  him  that  the  very  reason-  why  theologians 
affirm  that  the  denial  of  God  removes  the  foundation  of  moral  dis- 
tinctions, is  that  it  is  the  denial  of  the  supremacy  of  reason  and  the 
affirmation  that  the  ultimate  ground  of  the  universe  is  not  reason. 
Mr.  Spencer  however  himself,  as  we  have  already  seen,  says  that  the 
belief  in  the  "  positive  existence  "  of  the  absolute "  has  a  higher  war- 
rant than  any  other  whatever,"  "  though  the  Absolute  cannot  in  any 
manner  or  degree  be  known  in  the  strict  sense  of  knowing."  Yet  on 
the  next  page  he  declares  that  this  Absolute  is  "  an  Incomprehensible 
Omnipresent  power."  Here  then  his  own  doctrine  is  analogous  to  that 
which  he  falsely  charges  on  all  theology.  The  Absolute  Being  which 
is  the  ultimate  ground  of  the  universe  is  known  to  be  an  omnipresent 
power,  but  we  may  not  predicate  of  it  intelligence.  On  this  basis 
ethical  distinctions  must  rest  ultimately  on  irrational  power,  and  the 
ethical  ideas  lose  all  their  distinctive  significance  and  give  place  to  the 
ideas  of  the  agreeable  and  profitable.  And  this  substitute  for  Ethics 
is  all  that  Mr.  Spencer  gives  us  in  his  ethical  writings. 

The  doctrine  that  Law  is  in  the  Reason  and  is  not  the  creation  of 
will  is  as  old  in  philosophy  as  Plato  and  Aristotle,  who,  however  they 
differed  in  other  respects,  agree  in  recognizing  the  supremacy  of  reason 
and  the  dependence  of  moral  distinctions  on  it.  To  the  question,  what 
is  the  distinctive  character  of  actions  and  habits  which  constitutes  them 
virtuous,  Aristotle  answers :  "  we  can  say  at  once  that  they  must  be 
according  to  right  reason."  *  "  We  define  virtue  to  be  a  habit,  in- 
volving deliberate  purpose,  conforming  to  the  relative  mean,  which  is 
determined  by  reason  (^>?/^)  and  as  the  man  of  good  sense  (6  ypuviij.oq'} 
would  determine  it.  On  either  side  of  this  mean,  in  excess  or  defect, 
lies  vice."  (B.  II.  chap.  vi.  15,  16.)  In  defining  what  the  chief  good 
is,  he  says,  it  cannot  be  happiness  merely,  because  men  derive  happiness 
from  different  and  incompatible  sources.  He  defines  the  chief  good  as 
determined  by  the  standard  of  reason ;  "  An  active  condition  of  the 
soul  guided  by  or  not  without  reason "  ;  or  more  fully ;  "  An  active 
condition  of  the  soul  in  accordance  with  its  best  and  most  perfect  virtue 
(a/jer^y)  in  a  complete  (or  perfect)  life  (iv  ftta  TS^IW).^"  Therefore, 
though  Aristotle  teaches  that  virtue  consists  in  attaining  the  highest 
good,  yet  his  ethics  is  a  system  of  intuitive  morals  having  little  in  com- 
mon with  utilitarianism,  because  he  determines  what  ^e  highest  good 
is  by  the  standard  of  reason  and  declares  the  dependence  of  ethical 
distinctions  on  that  standard.  In  the  Euthyphro  Socrates  says  that  a 
quality  or  act  "  is  loved  by  the  gods  because  it  is  holy ;  it  is  not  holy 

*  Nicomachean  Ethics,  Book  II.  chap.  ii.  2. 
f  B.  I.  chap.  vii.  14,  16. 


SECOND  ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE  RIGHT.         197 

because  it  is  loved  by  the  gods."  (10.)  And  yet,  though  these  philoso- 
phers deny  that  the  will  even  of  the  gods  can  originate  moral  dis- 
tinctions, Mr.  Spencer  classes  them  with  Hobbes  as  teaching  that  moral 
distinctions  are  created  by  the  enactment  of  the  State.  *  This  is  the 
more  surprising  because  Aristotle  explicitly  distinguishes  in  political 
ethics  between  that  which  is  just  by  nature  and  therefore  has  every- 
where the  same  force,  and  that  which  is  enjoined  by  enactment ;  and 
notes  with  disapproval  the  opinion  of  some  that  the  latter  is  the  only 
just  and  unjust.f  And  Plato  repeatedly  argues  against  this  error  as 
held  by  Protagoras  and  others  whom  he  mentions  in  different  dia- 
logues.J 

Christianity,  in  its  historical  revelation  of  atonement  for  sin  through 
the  humiliation  and  suffering  of  Christ,  brings  to  the  front  the  fact  that 
law  is  neither  created,  annulled  or  changed  by  will,  not  even  by  the 
fiat  of  God's  will ;  but  that  God's  action  in  the  forgiveness  of  sin  must 
declare  the  immutability  of  law  as  really  as  in  the  punishment  of  trans- 
gressors. The  only  philosophy  consistent  alike  with  reason,  with  theism 
and  with  Christianity  is  that  of  Augustine,  following  Plato,  which 
recognizes  truth  and  law  as  eternal  in  God,  the  supreme  and  absolute 
reason.  No  fiat  of  God's  will,  no  exertion  of  almighty  power  can  make 
love  to  God  and  man  to  be  wrong,  or  selfishness  and  malignity  right. 
And  this  is  no  limitation  of  God ;  for  it  simply  declares  that  God  is 
perfect  and  absolute  Reason,  that  his  will  is  eternally  in  harmony  with 
Reason,  and  his  action  eternally  in  wisdom  and  love.  For  will-power 
to  change  the  moral  law  would  be  to  subvert  Reason  and  to  annihilate 
God.  God  is  Reason,  not  active  and  powerless,  but  energizing  freely. 
God  is  will,  not  capricious,  energizing  in  unreason,  but  a  rational  and 
reasonable  will. 

Some  theologians,  however,  have  missed  the  true  philosophy  and 
have  taught  that  moral  distinctions  rest  ultimately  on  the  will  of  God. 
Conspicuous  representatives  of  this  error  are  Duns  Scotus  and  Ockham 
in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  Descartes  in  modern  times.  §  The  error  seems 
to  have  arisen  in  part  from  failing  to  distinguish  between  God's  law, 
which  in  its  principles  is  eternal  in  the  reason,  and  God's  government, 
which,  in  declaring  and  enforcing  the  law,  is  the  action  of  will.  It 
seems  to  have*  arisen  in  part  from  jealousy  of  infringement  of  God's 

*Data  of  Ethics,  p.  51. 

t  Nicomacheau  Ethics,  B.  V.  chap.  x.  and  B.  I.  chap.  i. 

JThaetetus  172,  177:  Laws,  B.  x.  889,  890:  Gorgias:  Minos.  Even  the  Autocrat 
in  the  Politicus,  and  in  Laws,  B.  iv.  710,  rules  because  he  is  the  wisest  and  best  of 
the  people  and  in  accordance  with  a  science  of  government  which  regulates  his  entire 
administration. 

I  Duns,  Lib.  I.,  Sentent.  dist.  44;  Ockham,  Sentent.  Lib.  II.,  qu.  19;  Descartes, 
Responsio  ad  sextos  objectiones,  6;  Works,  Cousin's  ed.,  Vol.  II.,  pp.  348-355. 


198  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

prerogative.  It  was  argued  that  the  dependence  of  moral  distinctions 
on  the  will  of  God  is  essential  to  the  freedom  of  the  divine  will ;  an 
argument  which  confounds  freedom  with  arbitrariness  and  supposes  a 
character  unchanging  in  a  right  choice  to  be  incompatible  with  free- 
dom. It  was  argued  by  Descartes,  "  to  him  who  considers  the  immen- 
sity of  God  it  is  evident  that  there  can  be  nothing  at  all  which  doth  not 
depend  on  him,  not  only  nothing  subsisting,  but  also  no  order,  no  law, 
no  reason  of  truth  and  goodness."  But  he  does  not  consider  that  truth 
and  law,  being  eternal  in  God's  reason,  are  as  really  dependent  on  God 
as  what  is  created  by  his  will.  Leibnitz  even  suggests  that  in  advoca- 
ting this  error  Descartes  was  not  in  earnest.  Theologians  who  held  this 
error  certainly  did  not  intend  to  deny  the  universality,  immutability 
and  supreme  authority  of  God's  law ;  for  the  fiat  of  God's  will  which 
made  it  law  they  recognized  as  eternal  and  unchangeable.  Thus  An- 
selm  said  that  the  dictum  that  a  thing  is  right  because  God  wills  it,  is 
not  to  be  understood  as  if  in  the  case  of  God's  willing  anything  wrong, 
as  a  lie,  it  would  be  right.*  Duns  Scotus,  who  accepted  the  logical 
consequence  of  the  principle  and  taught  that  the  just  would  be  unjust 
if  God  willed  it,  yet  admitted  an  unconditional  necessity  for  the  law  of 
love  as  well  as  for  everything  which  logically  follows  from  the  same. 
(Lib.  III.)  And  Descartes  held  the  inseparable  identity  of  the  will 
and  the  thought  of  God.  It  seems  therefore  to  have  been  not  a  denial 
of  the  universality  and  immutability  of  the  moral  law  in  its  practical 
bearing,  but  rather  an  hypothesis  deemed  necessary  in  certain  venture- 
some speculations  respecting  the  metaphysics  of  God's  constitution,  and 
involving  an  unwarranted  abstraction  of  the  divine  will  from  the  divine 
reason.  Accordingly  we  find  it  used  in  later  times  as  a  philosophical 
basis  for  the  supralapsarian  doctrine  of  predestination. 

It  is  greatly  to  be  lamented  that  this  error  has  ever  found  foothold 
in  Christian  theology,  with  which  it  is  essentially  in  conflict.  It  cannot 
be  held,  even  as  a  speculative  theory,  without  distorting  and  vitiating 
both  the  theology  and  the  practical  teaching  of  Christianity.  It  has 
led  to  bald  and  hard  presentations  of  theology,  incompatible  with  the 
essential  truth  and  spirit  of  Christianity  and  with  the  best  thought  and 
the  best  piety  of  the  ages ;  and  by  the  misrepresentations  which  it  has 
engendered  it  is  a  hindrance  to  the  reception  of  Christ  aad  his  gospel. 

VI.  True  Ethics  is  distinguished  from  the  theory  that  the  principles 
of  truth  are  eternal  and  universally  regulative,  but  are  external  to  and 
independent  of  God. 

Some  theists  have  been  led  into  this  error  to  avert  the  imputation  of 
the  skeptic  that  according  to  theism  the  principles  of  truth  and  right 

*  Cur  Deus  Homo,  I.  12. 


SECOND  ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE  RIGHT.         199 

are  created  by  a  fiat  of  God's  will.  They  concede  to  the  skeptic  that 
there  is  no  other  way  in  which  these  principles  can  be  dependent  on 
God ;  they  fail  to  see  that  they  are  eternal  in  the  absolute  reason,  and 
thus  are  dependent  on  God,  although  independent  of  his  will,  and  law 
to  it  in  all  its  action ;  and  so  they  plunge  into  the  abysmal  error  that 
truth  and  right  have  no  dependence  on  God,  but  are  independent  and 
eternal  in  the  constitution  of  things. 

It  is  philosophically  impossible  that  this  theory  should  be  true.  The 
universe  consists  of  concrete  reality,  not  of  abstractions ;  it  is  a  uni- 
verse of  beings  in  their  various  modes  of  existence.  All  knowledge  is 
the  knowledge  of  being.  The  existence  of  truth,  right,  law,  perfection, 
beauty  or  worth  independent  of  any  mind,  is  without  meaning  and  im- 
possible to  thought.  It  is  as  meaningless  and  impossible  as  the  exist- 
ence of  motion  without  a  body  moving  and  without  force  moving  it. 
The  rational  cannot  exist  without  a  Reason  or  Mind,  any  more  than 
the  corporeal  can  exist  without  a  body. 

This  theory  nullifies  the  evidence  of  the  existence  of  God.  From 
our  knowledge  of  reason  in  ourselves  and  in  the  scientific  constitution 
of  the  material  universe  we  infer  that  the  universe  is  grounded  in  the 
personal  God  in  whom  as  the  Absolute  Reason  all  truth  and  law,  all 
ideals  of  perfection,  and  all  norms  or  standards  of  good  are  eternal. 
This  theory  nullifies  this  evidence  by  declaring  that  all  rational  princi- 
ples and  laws,  all  rational  norms  of  perfection  and  good  are  indepen- 
dent of  any  Reason  or  mind  and  are  eternal  in  the  constitution  of 
things. 

Not  only  does  the  theory  nullify  the  evidence  of  the  existence  of 
God  but  it  is  itself  the  direct  contradiction  of  theism ;  for  it  affirms 
that  the  universe  is  ultimately  grounded  in  the  impersonal,  not  in  the 
personal.  It  thus  concedes  all  that  is  essential  in  the  theory  of  "  crea- 
tion by  law  " ;  for  what  is  first  and  fundamental  in  the  universe  is  law 
but  not  God.  It  coincides  with  monistic  theories,  materialistic  or 
pantheistic,  which  explain  the  universe  as  the  sum  total  of  matter  and 
its  forces  acting  eternally  according  to  unconscious  law.  It  coincides 
with  Spinozism  which  recognizes  thought  as  one  original  attribute  of 
substance,  but  it  is  unconscious  thought.  It  coincides  with  Hartmann's 
"  Philosophy  of  the  Unconscious,"  which  recognizes  the  revelation  of 
rational  intelligence  everywhere  in  the  universe,  but  it  is  in  unconscious 
intelligence.  It  agrees  with  Hegel  who  puts  thought  before  matter, 
but  it  is  unconscious  thought.  Hegel  however  is  more  philosophical 
than  this  theory,  for  he  starts  with  pure  Being,  while  this  theory  starts 
with  that  meaningless  abstraction,  the  constitution  of  the  universe.  As 
a  theistic  theory  it  is  unphilosophical  and  inconsistent  with  itself.  If 
we  try  to  think  of  truth  or  law  independent  of  mind  in  the  constitution 


200  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

of  things,  the  essence  of  truth  and  law  escapes  and  nothing  remains 
but  facts  instead  of  truths  and  factual  sequences  instead  of  laws.  It 
might  still  be  possible  to  speak  of  what  appears  to  be,  but  no  longer 
possible  to  speak  of  what  must  and  what  ought  to  be ;  for  all  principles 
and  laws  of  reason  have  subsided  into  phenomena ;  there  is  no  standard 
of  distinction  between  the  true  and  the  absurd,  the  right  and  the 
wrong,  the  perfect  and  the  imperfect,  the  worthy  and  the  unworthy. 
Thus  the  theory  slumps  into  monism,  materialistic  or  pantheistic,  which 
knows  no  supreme  being  except  the  universe  itself. 

In  reply  the  theist,  who  has  fallen  into  this  error,  claims  that  the 
evidence  of  God's  existence  still  remains,  since  there  must  be  a  being 
who  has  caused  the  universe  to  exist,  and  that  he  must  be  wise  and 
good  because  he  has  caused  it  to  exist  in  accordance  with  these  princi- 
ples and  laws.  Here,  however,  is  evidence  only  of  a  power  by  which 
the  universe  exists  and  acts ;  and  this  power,  for  aught  that  ^appears, 
may  be  in  the  universe  itself.  There  is  no  evidence  of  wisdom  and 
goodness ;  for  according  to  the  theory,  these  principles  and  laws  are 
eternal  in  the  constitution  of  things,  and  if  the  universe  exists  at  all  it 
must  necessarily  exist  according  to  its  own  eternal  constitution,  which 
is  entirely  independent  of  God. 

Besides,  the  being  who  is  thus  supposed  to  bring  the  universe  into 
existence  is  himself  conditioned,  and  cannot  be  God,  the  absolute  and 
unconditioned  being.  Rev.  Dr.  Fairchild  says,  "The  principles  of 
morality  rest  on  the  same  foundation  with  those  of  mathematics  and  all 

necessary  truths The  moral  law  ....  exists  in  the 

nature  of  things  ....  Of  the  modification  of  this  doctrine,  that 
obligation  has  its  origin  in  the  reason  of  God,  it  is  only  necessary  to 
remark  that  reason  does  not  originate  principles  or  truths,  it  only  per- 
ceives them  already  existing."  *  I  may  remark  in  passing  that  this 
author  entirely  misapprehends  the  doctrine  which  he  so  summarily  sets 
aside.  It  is  not  the  doctrine  that  principles  or  truths  are  originated 
by  the  divine  Reason,  but  that  they  are  in  it  eternal  and  without  be- 
ginning. God  knows  them  in  himself  as  eternally  "  constituent  elements 
of  reason."  This  misapprehension  exemplifies  what  I  said,  that  theists 
are  led  into  the  error  which  I  am  controverting,  by  the  impression  that 
if  truth  and  law  are  dependent  on  God  they  must  have  been  originated 
or  created  by  some  definite  divine  act.  But  I  return  to  the  quotation. 

The  surprising  doctrine  here  asserted  is  that  the  nature  or  constitu- 
tion of  things,  that  is,  of  the  universe,  exists  eternal  with  no  dependence 
on  God  ;  and  that  truth  and  law  are  eternal  in  it  and  independent  of 
God.  God,  therefore,  is  always  conditioned  by  this  eternal  and  inde- 

*  Moral  Philosophy,  pp.  116-120,  143. 


SECOND  ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE  RIGHT.         201 

pendent  constitution  of  the  universe  and  by  all  the  truths  and  laws 
that  are  eternal  in  it.  If  he  creates  or  effects  anything,  he  acts  under 
necessity  and  can  effect  only  that  universe,  the  constitution  of  which 
already  exists  independent  of  him.  He  is  thus  conditioned  under 
necessity  in  the  exercise  of  his  power. 

He  is  also  conditioned  and  limited  in  his  knowledge.  "  Reason  only 
perceives"  the  constitution  of  things  and  the  principles  and  laws  eternal 
in  it  "  already  existing."  God  acquires  knowledge  of  the  constitution 
of  things  and  the  principles  inherent  therein  by  perception  and  ob- 
servation of  what  is  external  to  and  independent  of  himself.  God  then 
is  conditioned  and  dependent  both  as  to  his  power  and  his  knowledge. 
He  is  merely  a  Demiurge  who  studies  the  constitution  of  the  universe 
and  its  principles  and  laws  and  necessarily  shapes  the  worlds  in  ac- 
cordance therewith ;  because  the  eternal  constitution  of  things  makes 
it  impossible  to  shape  them  otherwise. 

Here  also  is  abstraction  carried  to  the  utmost.  I  have  criticised 
Spencer  because,  like  a  medieval  schoolman,  he  hypostasizes  abstractions 
of  human  thought  and  feeling  and  deals  with  them  as  distinct  entities. 
Here  in  like  manner  the  nature  or  constitution  of  the  universe  is 
abstracted  from  the  universe  and  conceived  as  eternal ;  the  truth  and 
laws  dominant  in  the  universe  are  abstracted  both  from  it  and  from 
the  supreme  reason,  which  is  God  ;  and  these  abstractions  are  hyposta- 
sized  as  eternal,  self-existent,  independent  entities,  and  presented  as 
alone  the  unconditioned  and  all-conditioning  ground  of  all  that  is.  It 
is  impossible  to  carry  the  hypostasizing  of  abstractions  farther ;  and  so 
long  as  theologians  teach  such  theories  of  the  universe  we  need  not 
wonder  that  skeptics  stigmatize  theology  as  a  tissue  of  abstractions. 

On  the  contrary  true  theology,  from  beginning  to  end,  deals  always 
with  concrete  beings.  The  ultimate  ground  of  the  universe  is  the  living 
personal  God,  eternal,  self-existent,  unconditioned  and  all-conditioning. 
In  him  as  perfect  reason  all  truth,  all  law,  all  ideals  of  perfection,  all 
rational  norms  determining  the  ends  worthy  of  rational  beings  are 
eternal.  These  are  themselves  "  the  nature  of  things  "  or  the  constitu- 
tion of  the  universe,  because  they  are  the  archetypes  which,  in  his 
wisdom  and  love,  God  is  progressively  expressing  in  finite  things ;  and 
therefore  the  universe  in  all  its  physical  and  all  its  rational  systems  is  the 
continuous  revelation  of  God.  Whereas,  according  to  'the  theory  which 
I  am  criticising  if  carried  out  to  its  necessary  logical  inference,  the  uni- 
verse is  not  a  revelation  of  God,  but  only  of  its  own  constitution,  in 
which  all  truths  and  laws  are  included,  existing  eternal  and  entirely 
independent  of  God  ;  and  the  necessary  inference  is  either  Atheism  or 
Pantheism. 

In  support  of  the  theory  that  truth  exists  in  the  nature  of  things 


202  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

independent  of  God  it  is  urged  that  if  God  and  all  being  were  IK.H- 
existent,  space  and  time  must  nevertheless  remain,  and  geometry  and 
arithmetic  would  still  be  true.  This  is  put  forward  in  the  quotation 
which  I  have  been  criticising  and  is  the  great  argument  in  defence  of 
the  theory. 

If  in  the  non-existence  of  being  space  and  time  should  remain,  that 
does  not  prove  that  moral  law  is  eternal  independently  of  God. 

But  men  deceive  themselves  by  these  violent  suppositions  of  the  non- 
existence  of  being.  We  are  rational  beings  and  all  our  thinking  is 
under  the  rational  laws  of  thought.  By  no  intellectual  somersets  can 
we  leap  out  of  ourselves  and  our  own  rationality.  Therefore,  if  we 
suppose  ourselves  to  think  away  all  being,  we  ourselves  remain  in  the 
void  and  think  there  according  to  the  necessary  principles  of  reason. 
Then  we  infer  that  if  no  being  existed,  everything  must  be  as  we  in  the 
exercise  of  our  reason  must  th;nk  it ;  and  so  space  and  time,  geometry 
and  arithmetic  would  survive.  Whereas,  if  there  were  no  being,  there 
would  be  no  reason,  no  difference  between  the  true  and  the  absurd,  or 
the  right  and  the  wrong ;  and  the  mathematically  impossible  and  all 
that  reason  sees  to  be  absurd,  would  be  just  as  possible  as  its  con- 
trary ;  for  nothing  would  be,  and  nothing  would  be  possible. 

Hence  in  the  non-existence  of  being  space  would  be  emptiness,  a 
mere  negation  or  non-entity ;  just  as  darkness  is  the  absence  of  light 
and  cold  is  the  absence  of  heat.  Knowledge  and  thought  are  impossi- 
ble except  as  being  is  the  object  of  the  knowledge  and  the  thought. 
Nothing  is  real  except  being,  its  modes  of  existence,  and  the  rational 
truths,  laws,  ideals  and  ends  which  are  regulative  of  it.  It  is  impossible 
to  have  a  thought  which  transcends  all  being,  or  which  is  not,  directly 
or  indirectly,  a  thought  of  being.  In  supposing  that  we  know  anything 
as  to  what  would  remain  if  all  being  were  non-existent,  we  deceive  our- 
selves. The  very  question  is  absurd,  for  it  is  the  question,  if  there  were 
no  being,  what  would  be?  The  only  answer  to  this  question  is  the 
entire  cessation  of  intelligence.  Space  has  no  reality  except  as  room 
for  being.  Room  for  being  has  no  reality  except  as  the  possibility  of 
being.  The  possibility  of  being  is  in  God  only. 

Space  and  time  are  forms  in  which  finite  beings  exist.  They  are  not, 
as  Kant  teaches,  subjective  forms  of  sense  in  finite  minds.  To  finite 
minds  they  are  objectively  real.  But  they  are  forms  of  finite  reality 
which  are  archetypal  and  eternal  in  the  absolute  and  divine  reason. 
According  to  the  constitution  of  the  universe  eternal  in  the  divine  rea- 
son, finite  beings  cannot  exist  except  in  time,  or  in  both  space  and  time. 
Subjective  and  objective  are  one  in  God  in  the  sense  that  what  is 
objective  to  us  is  first  subjective  in  the  archetypal  thought  of  God. 
Schleiermacher  says,  "  God's  eternity  is  the  absolutely  timeless  causality 


SECOND  ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE  RIGHT.         203 

of  God,  conditioning,  with  all  that  is  temporal,  time  itself?'  "  God's 
immensity  is  the  absolutely  spaceless  causality  of  God  conditioning, 
with  all  that  occupies  space  (cdlem  raumlicheti),  space  itself." 

There  is,  then,  a  real  significance  in  Dr.  Clarke's  a  priori  argument 
for  the  existence  of  God  from  time  and  space,  but  in  a  way  different 
from  that  in  which  he  presented  it.  Space  and  time  have  no  reality 
except  as  forms  or  constituent  elements  eternal  and  archetypal  in 
the  absolute  Keason,  and  thus  are  forms  of  the  existence  of  finite 
things. 

We  conclude  that  this  theory  of  truth  and  law  eternal  in  a  constitu- 
tion of  things  independent  of  God,  is  fatal  to  theism.  All  personal 
beings  are  autonomic.  As  man  finds  the  law  in  himself  in  his  own 
reason  and  conscience,  so  all  truth  and  law  are  eternal  in  God,  the 
absolute  reason.  Xo  man  can  thrQw  his  thought  behind  God.  God  is 
the  resting-place  of  the  intellect  not  less  than  of  the  heart.  All  lines 
of  thought  converge  towards  God ;  all  meet  and  stop  in  him ;  all 
spring  again  from  him,  made  certain  as  real  knowledge  and  effective  as 
life-giving  wisdom.  When  a  thinker,  audacious  to  soar  beyond  the 
limits  of  thought  to  its  ultimate  ground,  imagines  that  he  is  soaring 
beyond  God,  suddenly,  like  Satan  flying  in  chaos,  he  meets 

/ 

"  A  vast  vacuity  ;  all  unawares, 
Fluttering  his  pennons  vain,  plumb  down  he  drops 
Ten  thousand  fathoms  deep.'1 

§  38.    The  Formal  Principle  of  the  Law  and  the  Real 

Principle. 

I.  The  formal  Principle  of  the  Law  declares  the  idea  and  significance 
of  law.     It  is  the  rational  intuition  hi  which  the  idea  of  law  arises, 
namely,  A  rational  being  ought  to  obey  reason ;  or,  what  is  truth  to  Rea- 
son is  law  to  will.     This  is  the  statement  of  the  principle  in  philosophy, 
where  it  appears  in  its  most  abstract  form.     In  theology  it  would  be, 
Every  rational  being  ought  to  obey  God ;  or,  The  truth  eternal  in  God, 
the  supreme  reason,  is  law  to  the  action  of  all  rational  beings. 

The  principle  is  formal  in  the  active  sense,  formative  or  constitutive. 
When  truth  is  known  as  related  to  the  action  of  will,  we  know  intui- 
tively that  we  ought  to  obey  reason.  In  this  intuition  reason  sees  the 
truth  in  the  form  of  law,  as  imposing  on  the  will  obligation  to  act  'in 
conformity  with  the  truth.  This  intuition  of  reason  is  the  formal  prin- 
ciple of  the  law,  the  principle  which  gives  the  distinctive  idea  and  sig- 
nificance of  law. 

II.  The  real  principle  of  the  law  declares  what  the  law  commands : 
Thou  shall   love   the  Lord   God  with  all  thy  heart,  and   thy  neighbor 


204  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

as  thyself.  All  which  the  law  commands  is  comprehended  in  this 
principle. 

The  formal  principle  declares  the  obligation  to  obey  the  law  but  not 
what  the  law  requires.  It  tells  us  that  every  one  ought  to  obey  reason, 
or  to  obey  God,  but  does  not  tell  what  reason  or  God  requires.  If  by 
this  principle  we  attempt  to  include  all  the  virtues  in  a  unity  or  to 
designate  the  one  essential  quality  in  all  virtuous  acts  whereby  they 
are  all  virtuous,  wre  get  only  this,  that  they  are  all  acts  of  obedience  to 
law ;  in  answer  to  the  question,  What  does  the  law  command  ?  we  have 
only  the  empty  assertion,  The  law  requires  obedience  to  itself. 

The  real  principle  of  the  law  answers  this  question  ;  it  declares  that 
the  law  requires  love  to  God  and  our  neighbor.  This  is  the  essential 
quality  of  all  virtues  whereby  they  are  virtuous ;  it  includes  in  one 
principle  all  that  the  law  requires.  ,  Specific  duties  are  required  by  the 
law.  But  the  specific  commandments  need  not  be  considered  here ;  for 
the  law  of  love  is  the  real  principle  which  includes  them  all. 

This  distinction  of  the  formal  and  the  real  principles  of  the  law 
forces  itself  on  the  notice  in  every  thorough  discussion  of  ethics,  and 
ethical  writers  have  attempted  to  indicate  it  in  various  ways.  President 
Hopkins,  for  example,  gives  us  "  The  Law  of  Love  and  Love  as  a 
Law."  The  terms  which  I  have  appropriated  to  express  it,  seem  to 
me  better  fitted  for  the  purpose  than  any  others. 

We  may  use  the  words  to  discriminate  actions.  An  action  may 
be  formally  right  but  really  wrong ;  as  Paul's  action  in  opposing 
Christianity  was  formally  right  because  he  acted  with  the  recognition 
of  the  law  and  believed  himself  to  be  obeying  it ;  it  was  really  wrong 
because  it  was  contrary  to  the  real  requirement  of  the  law. 

III.  As  declaring  the  reality  and  significance  of  law,  the  formal 
principle  is  indispensable  to  the  law  and  to  its  practical  efficiency. 

1.  It  opens  to  us  the  range  of  thought  peculiar  to  law,  different  from 
the  agreeable,  the  profitable  and  the  prudential,  and  different  from  the 
truth.  It  is  like  the  opening  of  a  new  sense.  It  reveals  a  new  world 
of  reality.  Without  it  we  should  have  no  knowledge  of  duty,  or  virtue, 
or  authority  or  law.  These  words  would  be  meaningless.  It  seems  at 
first  an  empty  principle ;  but  it  lies  at  the  basis  of  all  moral  distinc- 
tions. Max  Miiller  says :  "  There  is  no  religion  which  does  not  say, 
'  Do  good,  avoid  evil.'  There  is  none  which  does  not  contain  what 
Rabbi  Hillel  called  the  quintessence  of  all  religions,  'Be  good  my 
boy.' "  *  You  laugh  and  say  it  means  nothing.  But  it  has  a  mo- 
mentous meaning.  It  calls  the  boy  away  from  passion  and  caprice  to 
reason  as  his  guide  ;  it  refers  him  to  a  law  which  declares  an  unchange- 

*  Science  of  Religion :  Lecture  IV. 


SECOND  ULTIMATE   IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE  RIGHT.         205 

able  distinction  between  good  and  evil  and  sets  him  to  studying  what 
that  law  requires ;  beneath  that  command  to  be  a  good  boy  and  giving 
it  significance,  is  the  law  of  God.  Note  the  immense  difference  be- 
tween an  education  which  says  "  Be  a  good  boy,"  and  that  which 
should  say,  "  Be  rich,  my  boy " ;  or,  "  Seek  your  own  pleasure,  my 
boy  " ;  or  "  Xever  mind  whether  you  are  good  or  bad,  my  boy."  The 
dawning  of  the  knowledge  of  duty  hi  a  child's  mind  is  like  the  dawn- 
ing of  the  day. 

2.  The  formal  principle  declares  the  real  principle  to  be  law.     It  is 
not  mere  advice  to  love  God  and  your  neighbor ;   it  is  not  merely  the 
didactic  information  that  love  is  beautiful,  agreeable  or  profitable.     It 
is  law,  Thou  slialt;  it  is  law,  declared  by  the  authority  of  God  and  en- 
forced by  penalty  for  disobedience.     Without  this  strength  and  au- 
thority of  law,  righteousness  is  displaced  by  the  desire  to  please,  virtue 
liquefies  into  a  gush  of  feeling,  and  love  is  dissolved  into  mere  amiable- 
ness  and  sentimentality. 

3.  It  recognizes  the  important  aspect  of  virtue  as  doing  duty,  as 
obedience  to  law,  as  subjection  to  rightful  authority,  as   loyalty  to 
government ;    and,  on  the  part  of  the  administrators  of  government, 
the  enactment,  maintenance  and  enforcement  of  just  laws.     Loyalty 
etymologic-ally   means   fidelity   to    law.      Loyalty  to   a   person   is   a 
secondary  meaning  of  the  word,  and  is  inferior  in  dignity  to  loyalty  to 
principle  and  law.     If  the  American  people  are  loyal  to  the  constitu- 
tion and  laws  rather  than  to  persons,  it  is  because  they  have  attained  a 
higher  grade  of  civilization  and  political  culture.     If,  however,  in  losing 
loyalty  to  persons  they  have  lost  also  loyalty  to  law  and  government, 
reverence  for  rightful  authority  and  the  very  consciousness  of  subjec- 
tion to  it,  they  have  sunk  rather  than  risen  in  the  scale  of  civilization. 
It  is  this  sense  of  duty,  this  loyalty  to  law  and  authority  which  is  as- 
serted and  emphasized  in  the  formal  principle  of  the  law. 

4.  It  also  gives  the  important  aspect  of  virtue  as  the  harmony  of  the 
will  with  the  reason,  and  the  consequent  harmony  of  the  man  with 
himself. 

5.  It  gives  also  the  important  aspect  of  virtue  as  the  harmony  of 
man  with  God,  and  so  with  the  constitution  of  the  universe. 

IV.  As  declaring  the  requirement  of  the  law,  the  Real  Principle  is 
indispensable  to  the  law  and  to  its  practical  efficiency. 

Without  it  the  formal  principle  gives  no  information  as  to  what  the 
law  requires. 

Without  it  duty,  if  it  could  be  known,  would  be  done  without  love. 
Virtue  would  be  mere  obedience  to  a  categorical  imperative.  But  love 
is  the  fulfilling  of  the  law.  I  obey  God  because  I  love  him.  I  serve 
my  neighbor  because  I  love  him.  Christ  recognizes  love  as  the  essence 


206  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

of  virtue.  The  sense  of  duty  alone  cannot  rise  to  the  sweetness,  beauty, 
freedom  and  dignity  of  right  character.  Sir  Thomas  Browne  presents 
a  wholly  inadequate  conception  of  Christian  duty  when  he  says :  "  I 
give  no  alms  to  satisfy  the  hunger  of  my  brother,  but  to  fulfil  and 
accomplish  the  will  of  God ;  I  draw  not  my  purse  for  his  sake  that 
demands  it,  but  His  that  enjoined  it ;  I  relieve  no  man  upon  the 
rhetoric  of  his  miseries,  nor  to  content  mine  own  commiserating  dispo- 
sition ;  for  this  is  still  but  moral  charity  and  an  art  that  oweth  more  to 
passion  than  to  reason."  *  At  this  point,  also,  Kant's  Ethics  is  defec- 
tive, grand  as  it  is  in  its  presentation  of  duty.  He  attempts  to  construct 
ethics  from  the  formal  principle  of  the  law  alone.  The  only  motive 
which  he  acknowledges  as  purely  moral,  is  the  sense  of  duty  desiccated 
from  all  feeling. 

From  the  same  error  has  arisen  the  belief  that  the  greater  the  struggle 
in  doing  right,  the  greater  the  virtue ;  the  more  spontaneous,  easy  and 
joyous  the  right  action  is,  the  less  its  virtue.  Whereas,  the  contrary  is 
true ;  the  greater  the  love,  the  greater  the  spontaneity  and  joy  of  the 
service,  and  the  greater  the  virtue.  Love  in  its  perfection  outstrips 
the  sense  of  obligation  and  anticipates  the  categoric  imperative  of 
conscience. 

And,  in  the  issue,  duty  done  merely  in  obedience  to  authority  be- 
comes debasing.  Conformity  merely  to  the  formal  principle  of  the  law 
would  be  a  submission  to  law  in  ignorance  of  what  the  law  requires.  It 
would  be  a  blind  submission  to  another's  will,  not  an  intelligent  sub- 
mission to  Reason.  It  would  be  the  obedience  of  a  Turkish  Janissary, 
as  ready  to  do  wrong  as  right,  if  so  commanded. 

In  the  moral  education  of  a  child  it  is  necessary  from  its  very  help- 
lessness that  it  be  first  taught  submission  to  authority.  Thus  it  learns 
that  it  does  not  live  for  itself  alone ;  thus  it  is  trained  to  the  conscious- 
ness of  duty,  to  obedience  to  authority,  to  the  knowledge  of  the  neces- 
sity of  rendering  service  to  others,  and  through  this  to  the  spirit  of  self- 
sacrificing  love.  It  has  been  suggested  by  some  profound  thinkers  that 
God  proceeds  in  the  same  manner  in  training  the  human  race  in  its 
infancy  and  childhood.  Man  is  found  first  under  a  patriarchal  govern- 
ment, in  which  the  ruler  is  obeyed  as  the  father  of  the  clan  or  tribe. 
And  thus,  as  the  first  step  in  moral  development,  man  is  taught  the 
ideas  of  authority,  law  and  obedience.  And  this  accords  with  the  pro- 
verbial maxim  expressing  the  common  sense  of  mankind,  that  no  one 
is  fit  to  command  till  he  has  first  learned  to  obey. 

But  history  as  decisively  proves  that  a  training  merely  to  unques- 
tioning submission  to  authority  is  debasing  and  crushing,  rather  than 

*  Religio  Medici,  Pjirt  II.,  ii.,  pp.  116,  117. 


SECOND   ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE  RIGHT.         207 

ennobling  and  developing.  Anthropologists  tell  of  the  slave  kissing  the 
hand  flint  strangles  him ;  of  the  savage,  accused  of  a  crime  which  he 
did  not  commit,  not  attempting  to  save  his  life  by  denying  it ;  the  con- 
sciousness of  personality  and  personal  rights  had  been  entirely  crushed 
out  of  them.  And  the  child  trained  merely  to  unquestioning  and  un- 
intelligent obedience  is  likely,  at  the  first  opportunity,  to  break  away 
from  all  authority  alike  of  man  and  of  God. 

It  must  be  added  that  the  will  cannot  consent  to  the  formal  principle 
of  law  otherwise  than  in  the  act  of  love  to  God  and  man  which  the  real 
principle  of  the  law  requires.  Moral  education  must  train  first  to  the  con- 
sciousness of  duty  and  obligation,  and  to  obedience  to  law.  But  it  must 
also  give  the  knowledge  that  the  obedience  is  not  rendered  to  superior 
power,  but  to  rightful  authority ;  not  to  the  caprice  of  arbitrary  will, 
but  to  the  behests  of  perfect  reason ;  that  the  law  obeyed  is  the  truth 
of  reason  and  the  requirement  of  perfect  wisdom  and  love ;  that  the 
commandment  is  addressed  to  rational  intelligence  and  the  service 
required  is  a  reasonable  service,  the  service  of  universal  love.  Hence 
it  is  only  in  the  act  of  love  that  the  will  consents  to  the  formal  principle 
of  the  law.  And  this  is  the  teaching  of  Christian  ethics.  God,  the 
Absolute  Reason,  sets  forth  the  truths  of  Reason  as  the  law  to  "Will ;  in 
Christ  he  comes  at  once  as  lawgiver  and  redeemer,  setting  forth  under 
human  conditions  his  own  obedience  to  the  law  in  self-sacrificing  love 
to  bring  sinners  back  to  obedience  ;  and  in  Christ  he  calls  men  to  the 
duty  and  the  exalted  privilege  of  loving  all  men  as  God  in  Christ  has 
loved  them,  and  serving  them  as  God  in  Christ,  taking  the  form  of  a 
servant,  has  served  them.  The  conception  of  virtue  as  the  harmony  of 
the  will  with  Reason  and  with  God  is,  as  we  have  seen,  important.  But 
the  will  can  come  into  harmony  with  Reason  and  with  God  only  as  we 
actually  love  God  with  all  our  hearts,  and  our  neighbors  as  ourselves. 

239.  Evidence  that  the  Law  of  Love  is  the  real  Principle 

of  the  Law. 

The  question  next  to  be  considered  is,  how  do  we  know  that  the  law 
of  love  is  the  real  principle  of  the  moral  law  ?  How  do  we  know  that 
the  law  requires  universal  love  ? 

What  love  is  will  be  fully  explained  in  a  subsequent  chapter.  It  is  ne- 
cessary, however,  briefly  to  define  it  here,  in  order  to  give  an  intelligent 
answer  to  the  question  before  us.  The  command  of  the  moral  law  is 
addressed  to  man  as  rational  free-will.  The  love  wrhich  it  requires  is 
not  natural  affection ;  it  is  not  emotion,  or  desire,  or  passion ;  it  is  the 
free  choice  of  the  supreme  object  of  service.  The  law  forbids  a  man 
to  employ  his  energies  supremely  in  serving  himself;  it  requires  him  to 


208  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

choose  God  as  the  supreme  object  of  service  and  his  fellow-man  to  be 
served  as  having  rights  equally  with  himself  under  the  universal  gov- 
ernment of  God. 

I.  As  Christians  we  find  this  requirement  of  universal  love  in  the 
laws  of  Moses,  sanctioned  as  the  all-comprehensive  principle  of  the  law 
by  Jesus  Christ.     (Deut.  vi.  5,  Lev.  xix.  18,  Matt.  xii.  37-39).     At 
present,  however,  I  confine  the  inquiry  to  evidence  aside  from  reve- 
lation. 

II.  The  rational  ground  of  the  belief  that  the  law  requires  love  is 
the  fact  that  every  man  is  related  to  other  rational  beings  in  a  moral 
system.     Man  finds  himself  intimately  related  to  other   persons   in 
society ;   his  own  welfare  and  his  sphere  of  achievement  depend  on 
their  action,  and  theirs  on  his. 

That  man  exists,  not  isolated  but  in  a  system,  seems  to  be  involved 
in  the  very  act  of  knowing.  Knowledge  is  the  relation  between  a 
subject  knowing  and  an  object  known.  In  the  act  of  knowing  I  know 
myself  not  only  as  distinct  from  other  beings,  but  also  in  relation  to 
them ;  I  look  out  on  the  outward  world  and  know  myself  as  a  center  of 
relations  radiating  in  every  direction  and  connecting  me  with  other 
individuals.  And  further,  in  the  knowledge  of  myself  as  a  person, 
I  know  myself  related  to  other  persons  in  a  rational  system.  And 
this  is  inherent  in  the  very  possibility  of  knowledge.  Thus  in  the 
very  act  of  knowing  I  know  myself  related  to  others  in  a  rational 
system ;  and  this  relationship  is  the  intellectual  basis  of  the  law  of 
love. 

Still  further,  in  knowing  the  truths  of  reason  as  law  to  will,  man 
knows  himself  in  a  moral  system.  He  has  intuitive  knowledge  of  the 
formal  principle  of  the  law  that  a  rational  being  ought  to  obey  reason. 
In  knowing  himself  rational  man  knows  himself  under  the  law  of 
reason.  He  knows  this  law  as  universal,  unchangeable,  imperative, 
and  of  supreme  authority,  as  the  law  of  Reason  supreme,  absolute 
and  eternal.  He  recognizes  himself  and  all  men  on  the  same  level  as 
subjects  of  this  common  law,  owing  reciprocal  duties  to  each  other. 
Thus  he  finds  himself  in  a  moral  system,  owing  duties  and  service 
to  others  under  the  law  of  reason  equally  binding  on  them  all. 
He  knows  that  in  all  his  action  bearing  on  another  rational  being 
he  ought  to  consult  the  rights  and  interests  of  the  other  as  really  as 
his  own. 

Therefore  we  are  not  in  a  moral  system  because  we  are  required  to 
love  one  another;  we  are  required  to  love  one  another  because  we 
are  in  a  moral  system.  Love  is  required  by  the  constitutive  law  of  the 
system. 

We  have  seen  that  moral  law  is  distinctively  law  to  free-agents  in  the 


SECOND  ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE  RIGHT.         209 

exercise  of  free-will.  Now  we  find  another  quality  distinctive  of  moral 
law ;  it  is  law  to  a  free-agent  in  his  action  towards  other  free-agents. 
Law  is  properly  called  moral  only  so  far  as  it  declares  the  duty  of  a 
rational  free-agent  to  a  rational  free-agent  in  a  moral  system. 

It  is  evident  that  in  such  a  system  "no  man  liveth  for  himself;"  a 
selfish  life  has  no  legitimate  place.  For  the  selfish  life  translated  into 
thought  would  affirm  the  absurdity  that  the  system  and  all  the  beings 
in  it  exist  only  to  serve  this  selfish  man.  The  maxim  on  which  he 
selfishly  acts,  if  made  a  universal  law,  would  bring  every  man  into 
deadly  conflict  with  every  other ;  human  life  would  become  impossible, 
and  the  social  system  would  be  destroyed. 

III.  The  knowledge  of  existence  in  a  moral  system  being  presup- 
posed, the  knowledge  of  the  real  principle  of  the  law  is  immediate  and 
self-evident  in  rational  intuition. 

1.  This  intuition,  that  the  law  requires  love  to  God  and  our  neighbor, 
arises,  like  all  others,  on  some  particular  occasion  in  experience  and  is 
practically  operative  before  it  is  recognized  and  formulated  in  thought. 
When  a  man  finds  his  own  action  affecting  the  interests  of  another  per- 
son, and  recognizes  the  fact  that  he  and  the  other  exist  together  in  a 
rational  system,  he  knows  intuitively  that  he  ought  to  respect  the  rights 
of  the  other  equally  with  his  own.     The  formal  principle  of  the  law,  so 
soon  as  we  recognize  other  rational  beings  with  us  hi  a  rational  system, 
carries  us  on  to  the  knowledge  of  a  reciprocity  of  duties  and  rights 
which  involves  obligation  to  reciprocity  of  love  and  service.      This 
intuition  is  germinal  in  the  virtual  consciousness  before  it  is  recognized 
and  formulated  in  thought.     The  law  of  love  is  not  known  in  intuition 
completely  formulated  as  Christ  proclaimed  it.     Rational  intuitions  act 
in  the  concrete  before  they  attract  attention  to  themselves,  and  it  is 
only  by  reflection  on  particular  cases -in  which  they  have  thus  acted 
that  we  get  the  principle  and  the  idea  and  formulate  them  in  words. 
So  it  is  with  the  law  of  love.     It  is  known  in  intuition  primarily  in 
particular  cases  when,  in  acting  with  reference  to  another,  the  obliga- 
tion is  felt  to  regard  his  rights  and  interests  equally  with  our  own. 
From  this  equality  the  word  equity  is  derived. 

2.  The  application  which  any  person  makes  of  the  law  will  vary  with 
his  own  conception  of  the  moral  system  to  which  he  belongs. 

When  man  knew  himself  only  as  a  member  of  a  clan,  he  was  aware 
of  obligations  only  to  his  clan.  Having  scarcely  knowledge  of  the 
existence  of  men  beyond  a  few  neighboring  clans,  whom  he  knew  only 
by  their  maraudings,  it  is  not  wonderful  that  he  felt  no  obligations  to 
regard  their  rights  and  interests.  Hence  arose  the  ancient  sentiment 
which  regarded  a  stranger  as  an  enemy  and  treated  him  like  a  wolf. 
Says  Cicero :  "  One  whom  we  nuw  call  a  foreigner  (peregrinum)  was 
14 


210  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

called  by  our  ancestors  an  enemy  (hostis)."*  And  Plautus  says:  "A 
stranger  is  to  a  man,  not  a  man,  but  a  wolf."f  Similar  sentiments 
were  long  dominant  in  ancient  civilization.  The  Phenicians  and  the 
Greeks  conceived  of  the  state  as  a  city  ruling  the  surrounding  territory. 
The  same  was  the  Roman  conception.  Even  in  the  times  of  the  empire 
citizenship  was  theoretically  citizenship  of  Rome.  So  long  as  man  thus 
conceived  of  himself  as  identified  with  a  small  community,  he  recog- 
nized his  obligations  to  that  community  and  its  members ;  others  he 
regarded  as  natural  enemies  and  conceived  it  right  to  conquer  and 
enslave  them.  J  In  like  manner,  so  long  as  a  man  identified  himself 
with  a  caste  or  order,  he  recognized  his  obligations  to  those  of  his  own 
rank,  but  absolved  himself  from  obligations  to  others.  The  solidarity 
and  fraternity  of  mankind,  the  obligation  of  every  person  to  serve  man- 
kind, found  slight  recognition  and  never  became  a  power  in  ancient 
civilization.  Yet  as  the  smaller  communities  were  merged  in  larger 
states  and  men  came  more  and  more  to  know  the  countries  and  inhabit- 
ants of  the  earth,  these  great  ideas  make  their  appearance  and  the  obli- 
gation of  man  to  man  as  such  is  recognized.  Max  Miiller  says  the 
word  "  mankind  "  never  passed  the  lips  of  Socrates,  Plato  or  Aristotle.  § 
Yet  at  a  later  period  the  Stoics  had  the  idea  of  a  city  of  the  world,  a 
commonwealth  transcending  all  particular  states.  Cicero  said :  "  For  a 
man  to  detract  anything  from  another  and  to  increase  his  own  advan- 
tage by  the  damage  of  another,  is  more  against  nature  than  death, 
poverty,  grief,  than  anything  which  can  happen  to  a  man  in  body  or 
estate.  Nature  prescribes  that  a  man  consult  the  interest  of  a  man, 
whoever  he  may  be,  for  the  reason  that  he  is  a  man" \ \  Seneca  says : 
"  We  are  members  of  a  vast  body.  Nature  made  us  kin  when  she  pro- 
duced us  from  the  same  things  and  to  the  same  ends."  "  The  world  is 
my  country  and  the  gods  its  rulers."  ^[  M.  Aurelius  Antoninus  says : 
"  My  nature  is  rational  and  social ;  my  city  and  country,  so  far  as  I  am 
Antoninus,  is  Rome,  but  so  far  as  I  am  a  man  it  is  the  world.  The 
things  which  are  useful  to  these  are  alone  useful  to  me."  ** 

3.  The  Law  requiring  love  to  God  as  supreme  and  to  our  neighbor 
as  ourselves  cannot  be  understood  in  all  the  significance  of  Christian 
Theism  without  considerable  advance  both  in  intellectual  and  moral 
culture.  Its  full  significance  presupposes  the  idea  of  the  universe  both 


*  De  Officiis,  B.  I.,  c.  12. 

f  "  Lupus  est  homo  homini,  non  homo,  quum  qualis  sit  non  novit : "  Asinaria,  Act 
2,  scene  4,  line  88. 
J  Plato,  Laws,  B.  I.,  625,  626. 
$  Chips  from  a  German  Workshop,  Vol.  II.,  p.  5. 
||  De  Officiis.  Lib.  III.,  cap.  V.,  21,  and  cap.  VI.,  27. 
^[  De  Beneficiis.  **  Thoughts,  VI.,  44. 


SECOND  ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE   RIGHT.         211 

as  a  Cosmos  or  unity  and  order  of  all  material  worlds,  and  as  a  moral 
system  in  which  all  rational  beings  exist.  And,  again,  this  presupposes 
an  idea  which  the  human  mind  was  slow  to  attain,  the  idea  of  a  uni- 
versal religion,  of  one  God,  in  their  common  relation  to  whom  men  of 
all  nations  and  ages  are  brought  into  unity  in  a  moral  system.  But 
even  this  idea  of  one  universal  system  has  its  germ  in  the  rational 
intuition  that  absolute  being  must  exist ;  and  in  the  intuitive  know- 
ledge of  obligation,  and  therein  of  a  law  transcending  myself  and 
coming  down  from  an  authority  above  me,  which  is  universal,  unchang- 
ing, imperative  and  supreme.  In  whatever  form  man,  in  different 
stages  of  development,  pictures  to  himself  this  authority,  it  is  always 
the  supreme. 

4.  We  see  that  sin,  which  is  the  essential  evil,  consists  in  self-isola- 
tion. Buddhism  regards  the  existence  of  finite  beings  as  essential 
evil,  because  they  are  individuated,  and  in  their  individuality  distinct 
from  the  infinite  one ;  from  this  evil  the  only  redemption  is  reabsorp- 
tion  into  the  infinite.  Christianity,  on  the  contrary,  emphasizes  the 
individuality,  responsibility  and  dignity  of  personal  beings,  and  sets 
forth  their  unity  in  a  moral  system  under  the  law  of  love.  Sin  and 
evil  arise  when  a  person,  by  his  own  free  choice,  isolates  himself  from 
the  system  by  choosing  himself  as  his  supreme  object  of  service,  and  so 
puts  himself  into  antagonism  to  both  God  and  man  and  does  what  he 
can  to  mar  the  order  and  beauty  of  the  system  and  to  resist  and  annul 
its  supreme  law. 

We  see,  therefore,  that  the  law  of  love  is  essential  in  the  rational 
constitution  of  the  universe.  God  is  love.  We  see  also'  that  man's 
knowledge  of  the  law  of  love  is  rooted  in  his  constitution  as  a  rational 
being  and  asserts  itself  in  its  germinal  and  rudimentary  form  as  an 
intuition  of  reason.  Man  is  so  constituted  that,  as  his  reason  normally 
unfolds,  he  knows  himself  under  law  and  knows  that  the  law  requires 
universal  love. 

IV.  That  man  is  constituted  for  subjection  to  the  law  of  love  is  indi- 
cated in  his  emotional  nature. 

He  is  constituted  susceptible  of  both  egoistic  and  altruistic  motives 
and  emotions.  In  babyhood  the  child  yields  almost  exclusively  to 
impulses  tending  immediately  to  its  own  sustenance  and  comfort. 
This  is  natural  because  in  its  helplessness  it  is  dependent  on  others. 
But  as  it  becomes  capable  of  acting,  the  altruistic  feelings  appear^ 
Affinity  for  others,  the  desire  for  their  society,  sympathy  with  their 
joys  and  sorrows,  compassion  for  their  distresses  and  the  disposition 
to  help  them  in  their  needs  are  spontaneous  impulses  of  the  human 
heart. 

Both  are  essential  to  the  well-being  of  the  individual  and  of  society. 


212  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

Egoism  alone  disintegrates  society  and  reacts  in  isolation  and  desola- 
tion on  the  egoistic  individual.  Altruism  alone  by  leading  the  indi- 
vidual to  neglect  himself  and  his  own  business  in  order  to  help  others, 
deprives  him  of  the  means  of  helping  others  and  of  the  knowledge  and 
power  to  help  wisely  and  efficiently ;  and  thus  is  fatal  to  both  parties. 
Egoism  and  altruism  are  not  contrary  but  complemental ;  each  is  essen- 
tial to  complete  love  to  God  and  man. 

Christianity  recognizes  both.  It  has  been  censured  as  requiring  an 
exclusive  altruism.  The  censure  discloses  a  surprising  ignorance.  In 
the  command,  "  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself,"  Christianity 
recognizes  the  love  of  self  as  the  measure  of  love  to  the  neighbor.  In 
approaching  man  with  the  remonstrance,  "  What  shall  it  profit  a  man 
to  gain  the  whole  world  and  lose  his  own  soul,"  it  begins  with  trying  to 
rouse  him  to  a  sense  of  his  own  highest  and  noblest  interests  and  to  induce 
him  to  seek  wiser  ends.  It  declares  the  worth  of  the  individual  man. 
It  is  Christianity  which  has  revolutionized  the  ancient  civilization,  in 
which  the  individual  was  lost  in  the  state  and  was  the  subject  of  no 
rights  as  towrard  the  state  but  only  of  duties,  and  has  compelled  that 
recognition  of  the  worth  of  the  individual  and  the  sacredness  of  his 
rights  which  has  vitalized  modern  civilization  and  progress.  And  by 
making  love  the  spring  and  principle  of  all  duty,  Christianity  has  made 
the  service  of  others  spontaneous  and  joyous,  has  opened  in  that  service 
spheres  of  the  noblest  living,  and  made  it  possible  in  the  most  com- 
mon-place life  to  realize  the  highest  ideals  and  to  participate  in  the 
glory  of  heroic  endeavor  and  the  enthusiasm  of  a  divine  inspiration. 
In  Christian  Ethics  Egoism  and  Altruism  are  not  reciprocally  exclu- 
sive but  are  complemental.  As  denoting  respectively  an  exclusive 
selfishness  and  an  exclusive  regard  to  others  they  cannot  be  names  of 
Christian  virtues.  Spencer  regards  them  as  essentially  antagonistic 
and  incapable  of  reconciliation  in  the  present  stage  of  man's  evolution. 
Christianity  reconciles  love  of  self  and  love  of  our  neighbor  in  the  law 
of  love,  in  which  both  self  and  the  neighbor  are  recognized  in  their 
common  relation  to  God  the  supreme  lawgiver,  and  in  the  common 
love  and  service  which  they  owe  to  him,  the  Father  of  all. 

We  have  seen  that  the  law  of  love  is  founded  in  the  very  constitu- 
tion of  society  and  also  in  the  rational  constitution  of  man.  We  now 
see  that  it  has  its  roots  in  man's  emotional  constitution,  in  the  natural 
motives  which  impel  him  to  regard  the  interests  and  rights  both  of 
himself  and  of  others,  and  the  natural  emotions  by  which  he  partici- 
pates in  the  sorrows  and  the  joys  of  his  fellow-men. 

V.  That  the  law  of  love  is  supreme  in  the  universe  is  verified  by 
experience.  It  is  thus  verified  so  far  as  experience,  shows  that  the  law 
is  accordant  with  the  constitution  of  society  and  the  rational  and  emo- 


SECOND   ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  EEASON:    THE  RIGHT.         213 

tional  constitution  of  manr  and  that  obedience  to  it  is  necessary  to  the 
true  well-being  both  of  the  individual  and  of  the  community. 

1.  The  fact  of  the  solidarity  of  mankind  and  the  obligation  of  bro- 
therhood involved  in  it  are  forced  on  the  attention  in  all  human 
relations  and  pursuits. 

We  must  rescue  men  from  uncleanness,  disease,  ignorance  and  vice 
or  suffer  therefrom  ourselves.  The  uncleanness,  vice  and  misery  of 
great  cities  send  abroad  the  germs  of  disease,  and  infest  the  community 
with  robbers  and  murderers.  The  cholera  on  one  of  its  desolating 
courses  through  Europe  and  America  originated  in  the  squalor  and 
wretchedness  of  crowds  of  pilgrims  in  Mecca.  Facts  like  these  are 
ghastly  declarations  from  the  outcasts  of  society,  "  We  are  brethren, 
though  you  heed  us  not ; "  they  are  revelations  of  the  unity  of  man  and 
of  that  fundamental  fact  of  human  society  that  if  one  member  suffer  all 
the  members  suffer  with  it.  Society  must  remove  ignorance,  vice  and 
misery  or  be  poisoned  by  it.  The  obligation  to  obey  the  law  of  love  is 
inherent  in  the  constititution  of  society. 

On  the  other  hand  the  health,  virtue,  intelligence  of  any  is  conducive 
to  the  welfare  of  all.  If  all  Africa  were  filled  with  a  civilized  and 
prosperous  people  it  would  stimulate  the  business  and  multiply  the 
gains  of  all  mankind.  The  nations  long  acted  on  the  false  principle  of 
political  economy  that  a  nation  advanced  its  own  industrial  interests  by 
crippling  the  industry  and  hindering  the  gams  of  others.  Now  they 
are  coming  to  understand  that  the  prosperity  of  a  nation  is  promoted 
by  the  prosperity  of  all  others. 

This  interdependence  of  men  reveals  itself  in  the  relations  of  indi- 
viduals. Man's  thoughts  and  feelings  are  continually  directed  towards 
others.  The  organic  relations  reveal  themselves  persistently ;  in  good 
will  and  friendship  it  may  be,  if  not  in  envy,  jealousy  and  hate.  Says 
Teufelsdrockh,  "  In  vain  thou  deniest  it ;  thou  art  my  brother.  Thy 
very  hatred,  thy  very  envy,  those  foolish  lies  thou  tellest  of  me  in  thy 
splenetic  humor,  what  is  all  this  but  an  inverted  sympathy.  Were  I  a 
steam-engine  wouldst  thou  take  the  trouble  to  tell  lies  about  me  ?  Not 
thou !  I  should  grind  all  unheeded  whether  badly  or  well."* 

Thus  the  solidarity  of  man  forces  itself  on  the  notice  as  a  fact.  It  is 
not  a  sentiment  nor  the  creation  of  a  sentiment ;  it  is  the  fundamental 
fact  of  human  existence.  And  as  this  great  fact  looms  upon  our  notice, 
the  obligation  of  each  to  consult  the  rights  and  welfare  of  every  other, 
the  obligation  of  each  individual  to  consult  the  rights  and  welfare  of 
society,  and  the  obligation  of  society  to  consult  the  rights  and  welfare 
of  each  individual,  become  apparent.  And  this  is  the  law  of  love ;  not 

*  Carlyle,  Sartor  Resartus :  B.  III.,  Ch.  7. 


214  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

a  sentiment,  but  an  eternal  truth ;  not  a  truth  in  the  thought  of  an  indi- 
vidual merely,  but  a  truth  which  declares  at  once  the  fundamental  con- 
stitution of  the  individual  and  the  fundamental  constitution  of  society. 
If  a  man  puts  himself  in  antagonism  to  this  constitution  of  things,  with 
its  law  of  love,  in  order  to  escape  it,  he  is  in  every  action  confronted  by 
humanity  and  can  escape  it  only  by  suicide.  If  he  puts  himself  in 
antagonism  to  it  in  order  to  promote  his  own  interest,  his  action,  if 
effectual,  would  disorganize  society  and  destroy  his  fellow-men,  that 
himself  might  be  all ;  and  to  this  result  selfish  action  always  tends. 
"  Whosoever  hateth  his  brother  is  a  murderer." 

And  this  is  analogous  to  the  material  universe.  The  very  idea  of  a 
universe  or  cosmos  implies  in  it  an  all-comprehending  plan  and  contin- 
uous action  towards  an  end.  In  the  lower  spheres  of  life  it  works  as 
instinct ;  in  inanimate  nature,  as  final  cause.  Nothing  in  it  is  good  in 
itself  except  as  it  imparts  its  energy  and  carries  onward  the  plan  of  the 
whole.  So  it  is  in  the  moral  system.  Every  being  has  significance  not 
for  himself  alone,  but  also  for  others ;  and  these  are  inseparable.  Says 
I.  H.  Fichte :  "  The  more  a  being  fulfils  its  end  in  reference  to  the  all, 
the  higher  does  it  advance  its  own  well-being.  He  most  certainly  over- 
comes the  world  who  rightly  serves  it.  He  obtains  from  it  the  highest 
blessedness,  who  most  faithfully  imparts  to  it  his  own  endowments."* 

2.  The  fact  that  obedience  to  the  law  of  love  promotes  the  highest 
good  of  the  individual  and  of  society  has  been  verified  by  experience. 
The  common  sense  of  mankind  declares  this  conclusion  in  the  maxim, 
"  Honesty  is  the  best  policy."  Positivism  declares  the  same  conclusion 
in  the  altruism  of  Comte. 

From  the  observation  of  the  course  of  the  universe  and  of  human 
history  the  evolutionist  also  reaches  the  conclusion  "  that  the  real  nature 
of  the  universe  is  such  that  it  warrants  on  our  part  unlimited  love  and 
absolute  trust  ....  that  the  highest  moral  nature  is  nearest  in  accord 
with  the  truth  of  things."  f  Matthew  Arnold,  from  the  side  of  ration- 
alistic skepticism,  reaches  the  same  conclusion :  "  If  there  is  a  lesson 
which  in  our  day  has  come  to  force  itself  upon  everybody,  in  all  quar- 
ters and  by  all  channels,  it  is  the  lesson  of  the  solidarity  of  men.  If 
there  was  ever  a  notion  tempting  to  common  human  nature,  it  was  the 
notion  that  the  rule  of  '  every  man  for  himself  was  the  rule  of  happi- 
ness. But  at  last  it  turns  out  as  a  matter  of  experience,  and  so  plainly 
that  it  is  coming  to  be  generally  admitted,  ....  that  the  only  real 
happiness  is  in  a  kind  of  impersonal  higher  life,  where  the  happiness  of 
others  counts  with  a  man  as  essential  to  his  own.  He  that  loves  his 

*  Theistische  Weltansicht,  Abschnitt  IV.,  $$  61-64. 

f  Man's  Moral  Nature,  by  R.  M.  Bucke,  M.  D.,  pp.  199,  200. 


SECOND  ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE  RIGHT.         215 

life  does  really  turn  out  to  lose  it,  and  the  new  commandment  proves 

its  own  truth  by  experience Jesus  Christ  and  his  precepts  are 

found  to  hit  the  moral  experience  of  mankind,  to  hit  it  in  the  critical 
points,  to  hit  it  lastingly ;  and  when  doubts  are  thrown  upon  their 
really  hitting  it,  then  to  come  out  stronger  than  ever.  And  we  know 
how  Jesus  Christ  and  his  precepts  won  their  way  from  the  very  first, 
and  became  the  religion  of  all  that  part  of  the  world  which  counted 
most,  and  are  now  the  religion  of  all  that  part  of  the  world  which  most 
counts.  This  they  certainly  in  great  part  owed,  even  from  the  first,  to 
that  instinctive  sense  of  their  fitness  for  such  a  service,  of  their  natural 
truth  and  weight,  which,  amid  all  misapprehensions  of  them,  they 
inspired."  *  The  same  conclusion  he  expresses  in  his  famous  declara- 
tion that  he  finds  supreme  in  the  universe  "  a  stream  of  tendency,  the 
eternal,  not  ourselves,  wrhich  makes  for  righteousness." 

3.  The  theory  that  man's  blessedness  must  be  sought  in  a  life  of 
selfish  acquisition  and  in  the  gratification  of  selfish  desires,  issues  in 
Pessimism.  For  the  desires  grow  by  what  they  feed  on ;  and  the  more 
a  man  devotes  himself  to  acquire  the  objects  to  which  they  impel  him, 
the  hotter  will  the  fever  of  desire  rage  and  the  more  restless  he  will  toss 
under  its  dry  and  consuming  heat.  On  this  theory,  Schopenhauer, 
Hartmann  and  Leopardi  are  right  in  their  conclusion  that  life  is  not 
worth  living  and  that  the  best  boon  to  man  is  the  extinction  of  his 
being.  Pessimism  is  a  reductio  ad  absurdum  of  this  theory  of  human 
life. 

VI.  That  the  law  of  love  is  the  universal  and  supreme  standard  of 
morals  is  confirmed  by  the  common  consent  of  mankind. 

1.  The  obligation  to  regard  the  rights  and  welfare  of  others  is  prac- 
tically felt  in  the  conscience  common  to  mankind  before  it  is  recognized 
and  formulated. 

This  cannot  be  proved  by  the  examination  of  every  human  being, 
but  is  inferred  from  facts  characteristic  of  humanity. 

It  is  implied  in  the  fact  that  everywhere  and  always  man  exists  in 
society  organized  under  civil  government.  Man  is  in  society;  civil 
government  is  necessary  to  declare  and  enforce  the  duties  of  man  to  his 
fellow-men  and  to  society,  and  to  protect  the  rights  and  interests  both 
of  the  individual  and  of  society. 

It  is  also  evident  in  the  fact  that  man  can  communicate  with  man 
everywhere  on  moral  subjects.  Wherever  man  travels  he  appeals  to 
the  same  moral  sentiments  and  is  understood.  We  understand  the 
moral  teachings  of  the  ancients.  The  self-sacrificing  love  of  Christ  is 
admired  wherever  it  is  known. 

*  Last  Essays  on  Religion,  pp.  21,  23,  24. 


216  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF   THEISM. 

Eloquence  is  impossible  in  behalf  of  injustice,  oppression,  hatred,  as 
such.  If  they  are  defended  it  must  be  under  the  guise  of  virtue. 
Hence  arises  the  maxim  of  some  Rhetoricians,  "  Eloquence  is  a  virtue/' 
Theremin  says,  "  Eloquence,  in  all  its  various  forms,  is  nothing  but  the 
development  of  the  moral  impulse  itself."  * 

It  is  also  evident  in  the  fact  that  everyone  feels  it  a  protection  to  be 
near  human  homes  and  in  the  presence  of  men  pursuing  their  ordinary 
business.  It  is  in  solitary  places  and  the  concealment  of  night  that 
one  fears  the  assaults  of  revenge,  cupidity  or  lust. 

2.  The  law  is  recognized  by  thinkers  of  various  classes  whose  funda- 
mental principles  it  contradicts.  Comte  in  his  Ethics  and  Sociology 
gives  us  the  law  of  Altruism.  In  this,  though  the  name  altruism  is 
inadequate,  he  recognizes  essentially  the  law  of  love  to  man.  This  is 
the  more  remarkable  because  it  is  incompatible  with  his  theory  of 
knowledge.  In  his  sociology  Comte  regards  the  individual  as  a  member 
of  society,  as  a  single  cell  is  part  of  an  organism.  From  this  concep- 
tion he  develops  his  ethics  of  altruism.  And  he  so  carries  it  to  an 
extreme  that  he  revives  the  ancient  heathenish  conception  that  the 
individual  is  so  an  organic  part  of  society  that  he  only  owes  to  it  duties 
and  has  in  respect  to  it  no  rights ;  while  society  owes  to  the  individual 
no  duties  and  has  in  respect  to  him  only  rights.  The  theory  of  know- 
ledge on  which  Comte  here  rests  his  altruism  is  a  sort  of  materialistic 
realism ;  man  knows  himself  in  the  organic  solidarity  of  the  race.  But 
this  is  in  direct  contradiction  to  pure  phenomenalism,  the  theory  of 
knowledge  which  he  lays  at  the  foundation  of  his  Positive  Philosophy. 
This  theory  rests  on  sheer  individualism  ;  the  material  of  knowledge  is 
only  the  impressions  made  on  the  sensorium  of  an  individual ;  and  the 
utmost  range  of  thought  is  to  unite  these  impressions  by  resemblances 
and  to  co-ordinate  them  in  uniform  sequences.  Knowledge  is  thus  shut 
up  within  the  subjective  states  of  an  individual.  Comte  unconsciously 
bursts  through  the  limits  of  his  own  theory  of  knowledge  in  construct- 
ing his  ethics  of  Altruism.  In  so  doing  he  proves  that  man  is  so 
constituted  that  some  glimpse  of  the  law  of  love  must  force  itself  on 
every  student  of  man  and  society,  in  spite  of  theories  of  knowledge 
incompatible  with  it.  On  the  other  hand  it  proves  the  falsity  of  Comte's 
theory  of  knowledge,  since  it  is  incompetent  to  give  the  law  of  love 
which  is  grounded  alike  in  the  constitution  of  the  individual  and  of 
society. 

Another  example  is  found  in  the  ethics  of  Evolution.  The  law  of 
the  survival  of  the  fittest  is,  according  to  this  theory,  a  fundamental  law 
of  all  organic  life.  It  is  the  law  of  all  life  that  the  strong  crowd  out 

*  Rhetoric,  Book  I.  chap.  iv. 


SECOND   ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE  RIGHT.         217 

the  weak ;  every  creature  superior  in  any  particular  to  another,  uses  its 
superiority  to  wrest  from  the  inferior  its  goods  and  to  appropriate  them 
to  itself.  The  only  principle  of  ethics  derivable  from  this  theory  is  the 
principle  that  might  makes  right.  Yet  evolutionists  teach  ethics 
founded  on  the  law  of  love.  They  even  claim  that  in  denying  exist- 
ence after  death  they  set  forth  a  purer  and  more  disinterested  love  than 
Christianity  with  its  endless  rewards  of  virtue  can  present.  Mr.  Spencer 
regards  the  selfish  aggressiveness  of  individuals  and  the  marauding, 
belligerent  and  subjugating  spirit  of  the  race  as  legitimate  and  neces- 
sary results  of  evolution.  But  he  teaches  that  the  evolution  is  carrying 
man  beyond  this  into  a  social  state  of  sympathy  and  co-operation,  in 
which  ultimately  man  will  find  his  own  pleasure  in  promoting  the 
pleasure  of  others ;  altruistic  feelings  will  become  so  dominant  that  the 
man  will  forget  his  own  pleasure  in  the  pleasure  of  serving  others ;  and 
self-denial  will  be  transfigured  into  self-gratification.*  But  if  the 
fundamental  law  of  evolution  in  living  beings,  that  the  strong  crowd 
out  the  weak,  by  its  own  action  transforms  itself  in  man's  development 
into  the  law  of  self-sacrificing  love,  certainly  some  power  above  nature 
reveals  itself  in  man,  and  a  rational  and  spiritual  law  comes  into  sight, 
which  is  above  nature's  laws  and  directs  them  to  its  spiritual  ends. 
And  this*  law  is  the  law  of  love. 

Mr.  Spencer  says,  "  That  these  conclusions  will  meet  with  any  con- 
siderable acceptance  is  improbable.  Neither  with  current  ideas  nor 
with  current  sentiments  are  they  sufficiently  congruous."  f  In  several 
of  the  closing  chapters  of  his  Psychology  he  considers  the  relations  and 
the  antagonism  of  Egoism  and  Altruism,  and  finds  no  clear  and  satis- 
factory way  of  harmonizing  them.  But  by  looking  into  the  New  Test- 
ament he  could  have  found  a  broader  and  clearer  statement  of  the  law 
of  love,  which  sets  forth  the  harmony  of  Egoism  and  Altruism  in  a  way 
clear  from  all  his  difficulties ;  and  would  have  found,  predicted  by 
Hebrew^  prophets  and  by  Christ  and  his  apostles,  the  realization  of  that 
reign  of  love  which  he  anticipates  as  the  destined  happiness  of  mankind. 
Yet  he  goes  out  of  his  way  to  assail  Christianity  with  spiteful  misrepre- 
sentations, and  in  his  whole  volume  of  the  Data  of  Ethics  recognizes 
the  excellence  of  Christian  morality  no  further  than  in  this  grudging 
acknowledgment :  "  There  are  some,  classed  as  antagonists  to  the  cur- 
rent creed,  who  may  not  think  it  absurd  to  believe  that  a  rationalized 
version  of  its  ethical  principles  will  eventually  be  acted  on."  J  Here 
the  fact  that  evolutionists,  in  teaching  ethics,  are  obliged  to  go  right  in 
the  teeth  of  a  fundamental  law  of  evolution,  reveals  at  once  the  impos- 

*Data  of  Ethics,  Chap  xiv. :  Biology,  Part  VI.  Chap.  xiii. 

|  Data,  p.  257.  t  Data  of  Ethics,  g  98. 


218  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS    OF  THEISM 

sibility  of  escaping  the  acknowledgment  of  the  law  of  love  and  the  inad- 
equacy of  evolution  to  explain  man's  rational  and  moral  life. 

Another  example  is  found  in  the  sophists  of  ancient  Greece.  They 
grounded  virtue  in  pleasure,  and  thus  destroyed  the  very  ideas  of  obli- 
gation and  law  and  all  that  is  distinctive  in  the  idea  of  virtue.  And 
yet  they  taught  that  virtue  consists  in  promoting  the  welfare  of  the 
state,  in  supporting  and  advancing  the  commonwealth.  This  idea  ot 
virtue  may  spring  from  Kant's  principle  of  Ethics :  "  So  act  that  the 
maxims  of  thine  own  action  may  also  be  the  principle  of  a  universal 
law."  *  It  may  spring  from  any  principle  which  finds  the  ground  of 
ethics  in  man's  rational  constitution  and  in  the  constitution  of  society 
as  a  rational  or  moral  system.  But  it  is  entirely  foreign  from  the 
ethical  principle  of  the  sophists  and  could  never  have  been  developed 
from  it.  Like  the  Positivists  and  the  EvoJutionists,  the  Sophists  found 
the  intuitions  of  their  own  reason  and  the  necessity  of  regarding  society 
in  its  essential  constitution  as  a  moral  system,  stronger  than  their  own 
theories. 

3.  Men  who  doubt  or  deny  the  truth  of  Christianity  and  even  of 
Theism  now  admit  that  the  law  of  love  has  been  commonly  acknow- 
ledged in  the  theology,  philosophy  and  literature  of  mankind. 

Mr.  Buckle  says :  "  There  is  unquestionably  nothing  to  be 'found  in 
the  world  which  has  undergone  so  little  change  as  those  great  dogmas 
of  which  moral  systems  are  composed.     To  do  good  to  others ;  to  sacri- 
fice for  their  benefit  your  own  wishes ;  to  love  your  neighbor  as  your- 
self; to  forgive  your  enemies ;  to  restrain  your  passions ;  to  honor  your 
parents ;  to  respect  those  who  are  set  over  you ;  these  and  a  few  others 
are  the  sole  essentials  of  morals ;  but  they  have  been  known  for  thou- 
sands of  years,  and  not  one  jot  or  tittle  has  been  added  to  them  by  all 
the  sermons,  homilies  and  text-books  which  moralists  and  theologians 
have  been  able  to  produce.    ...    In  reference  to  our  moral  conduct, 

there  is  not  a  single  principle  now  known  to  the  most  cultivated  Eu- 
ropeans which  was  not  likeAvise  known  to  the  ancients.    .....    That 

the  system  of  morals  propounded  in  the  New  Testament  contained  no 
maxim  which  had  not  been  previously  enunciated,  and  that  some  of  the 
most  beautiful  passages  in  the  apostolic  wrritings  are  quotations  from 
pagan  authors  is  well  known  to  every  scholar,  and  so  far  from  supply- 
ing, as  some  suppose,  an  objection  against  Christianity,  it  is  a  strong 
recommendation  of  it,  as  intimating  the  intimate  relation  between  the 
doctrine  of  Christ  and  the  moral  sympathies  of  mankind."  f  The  mis- 
statement  of  facts  in  this  passage  must  be  "  well  known  to  every  scho- 

*  Grundlegung  zur  Metaphysik  der  Sitten,  Abschnitt  II.,  p.  47. 
f  History  of  Civilization,  Vol.  I.,  129,  130. 


SECOND  ULTIMATE   IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE  RIGHT.         219 

lar ; "  yet  it  is  an  acceptance  of  the  Christian  doctrine  that  there  is  for 
mankind  one  and  the  same  universal  standard  of  morals.  The  New 
Testament  sets  forth  the  law  of  love  as  declared  in  the  Pentateuch  and 
reiterated  by  Christ,  as  a  universal  law  for  all  mankind.  Paul  expli- 
citly declares  that  this  law  is  known  by  the  heathen  through  the  reason 
or  conscience  common  to  all  men,  and  is  the  ground  of  their  guilt, 
though  they  had  not  knowledge  of  the  revelation  of  the  law  through 
Moses  and  through  Christ.  *  Christian  theologians  and  moralists  have 
taught  with  Paul  the  existence  of  this  common  standard  or  law  of 
morals  grounded  in  the  very  constitution  of  man  and  more  or  less 
clearly  known  to  all  mankind.  This  position  they  have  long  been 
obliged  strenuously  to  defend  against  skeptical  writers  who  have  denied 
it,  and  who  have  urged  various  arguments  to  prove  that  different  na- 
tions and  ages  have  different  standards  of  mpral  action  or  else  are 
entirely  destitute  of  moral  ideas.  Lately  a  great  change  has  taken 
place.  The  passage  just  quoted  from  Buckle,  with  the  exception  of  his 
candid  admission  at  the  close,  represents  the  general  drift  of  recent 
thought  on  this  subject  on  the  part  of  opponents  of  Christianity.- 
Christian  thinkers  welcome  this  as  a  concession  of  the  position  which 
intelligent  theologians  and  moralists  have  held  and  strenuously  defended 
as  the  true  doctrine  of  Christianity. 

The  fact  that  the  recognition  of  the  law  of  love  is  not  peculiar  to  the 
teachings  of  Christ,  has  been  urged  as  an  objection  against  Christianity. 
It  has  force,  however,  only  against  Christianity  falsely  conceived.  At 
times  principles  of  a  false  rationalism  have  influenced  theological  think- 
ing. This  was  eminently  the  case  in  the  defence  of  Christianity  against 
the  English  deists  in  the  last -century.  The  apologists  seemed  to  regard 
Christianity  as  a  system  of  philosophy  and  ethics.  So  regarding  it, 
their  "  internal  evidences "  consisted  mainly  in  proving  that  Christ 
taught  a  system  of  ethics  purer  than  any  that  had  ever  been  taught 
before.  This  evidence  fails  so  soon  as  it  is  shown  that  the  fundamental 
principle  of  the  law  as  taught  by  Christ  is  not  peculiar  to  his  teaching, 
but  is  grounded  in  the  constitution  of  man  and  has  been  generally 
recognized  by  ethical  thinkers  in  every  age.  How  far  skeptical  writers 
have  been  led  to  their  new  position  by  discovering  this  weak  place  in 
those  defences  of  Christianity  and  mistaking  it  for  a  weakness  in 
Christianity,  and  thus  flattering  themselves  that  they  were  giving 
Christianity  itself  a  deadly  and  final  thrust,  I  cannot  say.  But  in 
reality  they  have  conceded  to  Christianity  a  most  important  point.  It 
is  not  merely,  as  Buckle  puts  it,  the  concession  that  Christianity  accords 
with  and  is  rooted  hi  the  universal  moral  sympathies  of  mankind ;  it 

*  Rom.,  chap.  I.  and  II. 

I 


220  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

also  calls  attention  to  what  is  the  distinctive  and  essential  characteristic 
of  Christianity.  Christianity  is  not  distinctively  and  essentially  phil- 
osophy, doctrine,  law  or  ethics ;  it  is  God's  action  in  human  history 
redeeming  man  from  condemnation  and  from  the  power  of  sinful  char- 
acter, renewing  him  to  the  life  of  love  in  which  he  comes  again  into 
harmony  with  the  law  which  he  had  broken.  Redemption  presupposes 
the  knowledge  of  law  and  the  consciousness  of  sin.  Christianity  is  not 
a  revelation  of  law  but  of  God's  spiritual  power  in  Christ  and  the  Holy 
Spirit,  acting  in  human  history  and  making  the  law  effectual  to  realize 
in  man  that  love  which  out  of  Christ  the  law  had  commanded  only  to  be 
disobeyed.  According  to  this  conception  of  Christianity,  the  fact  that 
the  law  of  love  has  been  the  common  standard  of  morals  to  mankind  is 
not  an  objection  to  it,  but  rather  a  confirmation  of  its  truth.  Christ- 
ianity is  not  doctrine  and  ethics,  but  life  and  power.  In  the  words  of 
Minucius  Felix,  "  Non  eloquimur  magna,  sed  vivimus."  It  must  be 
added  that  caution  is  necessary  in  estimating  the  representations  of  this 
subject  now  commonly  made.  The  representations  of  the  coincidence 
of  heathen  ethics  with  Christian  are  exaggerated.  Fine  sentiments  and 
true  principles  scattered  in  isolation  here  and  there  are  gathered  from 
all  heathen  literature  and  presented  as  one  system ;  from  the  knowledge 
of  Christianity  a  meaning  is  sometimes  interpreted  into  them  which 
their  authors  did  not  apprehend ;  the  inconsistent  and  immoral  teach- 
ings and  practices  of  the  same  writers  are  overlooked ;  and  no  notice  is 
taken  of  the  imperfect  conception  of  the  meaning  of  the  law  and  of  the 
extent  of  its  application  in  the  ages  when  man  had  not  yet  grown  up 
to  the  conception  of  the  solidarity  of  mankind  in  a  moral  system.  And 
these  fragmentary  fine  sentiments  winnowed  from  the  chaff,  are  brought 
together  as  heathen  morality  and  compared  with  the  morality  of  the 
New  Testament.  It  is  also  impossible  to  avoid  noticing  in  many  of 
these  writers,  who  of  late  have  been  eulogizing  heathen  morality,  an 
obtrusive  partiality  for  heathenism;  a  delight  in  expatiating  on  the 
beauty  of  its  sentiments  and  unfolding  it  in  its  most  favorable  light ; 
with  a  grudging  and  niggardly  acknowledgment  of  the  excellence  of 
Christianity,  a  surly  disposition  to  depreciat  3  its  worth,  and  frequently 
either  an  amazing  ignorance  or  a  willful  misrepresentation  of  its  ethical 
teachings.  No  system  of  morals  ever  taught  in  heathenism  will  com- 
pare in  comprehensiveness,  simplicity,  clearness  and  practical  appli- 
cability and  power  with  that  of  Christianity.  The  best  teachings  of  all 
heathen  literature  combined,  after  all  attendant  errors  have  been 
eliminated,  do  not  constitute  an  ethical  system  equal  in  completeness, 
simplicity,  purity,  clearness  and  power  to  the  law  of  love  as  taught  by 
Christ ;  as  exemplified  in  the  self-sacrificing  love  of  Christ's  humilia- 
tion and  his  earthly  life  and  death ;  and  as  thus  declared  to  be  the 


SECOND  ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE  RIGHT.         221 

fundamental  and  constitutive  law  of  the  universe,  at  once  the  law  of 
God  and  the  law  of  man.  The  principle  which  should  guide  us  in  this 
comparison  was  well  expressed  by  Lactantius :  "  No  sect  and  no  philo- 
sopher has  ever  been  so  far  astray  as  not  to  know  something  of  the 
truth.  So  that  if  there  were  any  who  should  collect  all  the  truth 
scattered  among  individual  philosophers  and  different  sects  and  reduce 
it  into  a  system,  he  indeed  would  not  differ  from  us.  But  this  no  one 
can  do  unless  he  is  learned  and  also  skillful  in  discriminating  truth."  * 

4.  That  the  law  of  love  has  been  recognized  by  the  common  consent 
of  mankind  is  confirmed  by  scholarly  investigation  of  the  religion, 
philosophy  and  literature  of  the  world. 

I  shall  attempt  no  more  than  to  notice  a  few  examples.  Buddha 
says  .  "  Religion  is  nothing  but  the  faculty  of  love."  f  Buddhism  re- 
cognizes the  law  of  universal  self-sacrificing  love  in  the  life  of  Siddhar- 
tha  Gautama  its  founder;  in  its  two  foundation  principles,  self-conquest 
and  universal  charity ;  and  in  its  principle  that  evil  consists  in  todi- 
vidualism.  Through  the  last  principle  comes  in  the  pessimism  which 
infects  the  whole  system  with  deadly  poison.  Evil  consists  in  indi- 
viduation ;  this  is  true.  But  the  Buddhist  inference  is,  Man  is  an 
individual ;  therefore  his  very  constitution  is  evil ;  he  can  escape  evil 
only  by  absorption  into  the  all,  losing  his  individuality  and  his  con- 
scious being  at  once  in  Nirvana.  What  a  pitiful  conclusion  for  a 
system  which  has  so  much  that  is  true  and  noble.  How  immeasurably 
superior  is  Christianity.  Christianity  also  teaches  that  individuation  is 
evil,  meaning  by  individuation,  isolation  in  selfish  egoism.  But 
according  to  Christianity  the  evil  does  not  inhere  in  the  constitution  of 
the  man.  Man's  dignity  is  in  his  personality  whereby  he  is  capable  of 
knowing  and  serving  God  and  of  loving  all  as  God  loves  all.  He  is  also 
in  his  nature  a  member  of  a  race,  and  in  his  personality  a  member  of 
a  rational  and  moral  community.  In  coming  into  harmony  with  God 
and  with  both  the  natural  and  the  rational  systems  through  love,  he 
realizes,  not  the  extinction,  but  the  development,  perfection  and  bless- 
edness of  his  being.  And  in  the  self-sacrificing  life  of  its  founder  and 
its  principles  of  self-conquest  and  universal  love,  Christianity  is  far 
from  being  inferior  to  Buddhism. 

Sir  William  Jones  cites  "  the  beautiful  Arya  couplet/'  which  was 
"  written  at  least  three  centuries  before  our  era,"  and  which  pronounces 
the  duty  of  a  good  man,  even  in  the  moment  of  his  destruction,  to  con- 
sist "not  only  in  forgiving,  but  even  in  a  desire  of  benefiting  his 
destroyer,  as  the  sandal-tree  in  the  instant  of  its  overthrow,  sheds  per- 

*Inst.  Div.  Lib.  VII.  Cap.  vii. 

t  Lillie's  Buddha  and  Early  Buddhism,  p.  147. 


222  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS   OF  THEISM. 

fume  on  the  ax  that  fells  it."  He  cites  similar  sentiments  from  Ma- 
hometan poets  of  Persia ;  "  The  verse  of  Saadi  who  represents  a  return 
of  good  for  good  as  a  slight  reciprocity,  but  says  to  the  virtuous  man, 
"  Confer  benefits  on  him  who  has  injured  thee ;  "  also  the  fanciful  com- 
parisons in  the  verses  of  Hafiz,  the  poet  of  Shiraz : 

"Learn  from  yon  orient  shell  to  love  thy  foe, 
And  store  with  pearls  the  hand  that  brings  thee  woe. 
Free  like  yon  rock  from  base  vindictive  pride, 
Emblaze  with  gems  the  wrist  that  rends  thy  side; 
Mark  where  yon  tree  rewards  the  stony  shower 
With  fruit  nectareous  or  the  balmy  flower : 
All  nature  cries  aloud :  shall  man  do  less 
Than  heal  the  smitten  and  the  railer  bless  ?  " 

In  closing  his  remarks  on  this  subject  he  says,  "  My  principal  motive 
wastto  give  you  a  spcimen  of  \he  ancient  oriental  morality  which  is 
comprised  in  an  infinite  number  of  Persian,  Arabic  and  Sanscrit  com- 
positions."* 

The  principle  of  the  Golden  Rule  is  expressed  in  various  forms  by 
Herodotus,  Thales,  Pittacus,  Lysias,  Isocrates,  Diogenes  Laertius,  (who 
cites  it  as  an  expression  of  Aristotle),  Seneca,  Ovid,  Terence,  Epictetus 
and  Marcus  Aurelius  Antoninus.  It  has  commonly  been  said  that 
Confucius  gave  it  only  in  the  negative  form.  But  Prof.  Ezra  Abbot 
has  shown  that  he  has  given  it  both  in  the  negative  and  the  -  positive 
forms.f 

It  is  to  be  noted  that,  while  ancient  writers  set  forth  the  Golden  Rule, 
they  do  not  commonly  set  it  forth  as  the  action  or  expression  of  the 
heart's  love  to  man,  nor  recognize  its  essential  connection  with  love 
to  God.  This  is  not  surprising,  however,  since  it  is  only  when  man 
comes  to  know  the  one  only  God,  and  thus  attains  the  conception  of  a 
universal  religion,  that  he  comes  to  know  the  solidarity  of  the  human 
race  in  one  moral  system,  and  thus  is  able  to  appreciate  the  deeper 
grounds  of  his  interest  in  man  in  their  common  relation  to  God  as 
their  father.  Herein  we  see  the  great  superiority  of  the  ethics  of  Jesus 
Christ,  who  teaches  that  man's  duty  to  man  is  inseparable  from  his  duty 
to  God,  and  can  neither  be  understood  in  its  true  significance  nor  prac- 
tised in  its  true  spirit  apart  from  his  duty  to  Him. 

Plato,  however,  recognizes  this  relation  and  teaches  that  our  duty  is 
determined  by  our  membership  in  the  moral  system  under  the  govern- 
ment of  God.  "  The  ruler  of  the  universe  has  ordered  all  things  with 

*  Discourse  XI.  before  the  Asiatic  Society.    The  Philosophy  of  the  ancient  East; 
Works,  Vol.  III.  pp.  243,  245.     London,  1807. 
|  Journal  of  the  Am.  Oriental  Soc.  Vol.  IX. 


SECOND   ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE  EIGHT.         223 

a  view  to  the  preservation  and  perfection  of  the  whole,  of  which  each 
part  has  its  fitting  action  and  passion,  and  every  minutest  action  and 
passion  of  each  part  to  the  last  fraction  has  its  appointed  supervision. 
Of  these  parts  one  is  thine,  stubborn  youth,  which,  however  little, 
always  influences  the  whole.  You  forget  that  this,  and  everything  that 
comes  into  being,  exists  for  the  whole,  that  the  whole  may  be  blessed. 
You  exist  for  the  whole,  not  the  whole  for  you."* 

To  the  same  purport  is  the  discourse  of  Epictetus.  "  If  what  philoso- 
phers say  of  the  kinship  between  God  and  men  be  true,  what  has  any 
one  to  do  but,  like  Socrates,  when  he  is  asked  what  countryman  he  is, 
never  to  say  that  he  is  a  citizen  of  Athens  or  of  Corinth,  but  of  the 
universe.  For  why,  if  you  limit  yourself  to  Athens,  do  you  not  farther 
limit  yourself  to  that  mere  corner  of  Athens  where  your  body  was 
born  ?  ....  He  who  understands  the  administration  of  the  universe 
and  has  learned  that  the  principal  and  greatest  and  most  comprehensive 
of  all  things  is  this  vast  system  extending  from  men  to  God  ;  and  that 
from  him  the  seeds  of  being  are  descended,  not  only  to  one's  father  or 
grandfather,  but  to  all  things  that  are  produced  and  born  on  earth,  and 
especially  to  rational  natures,  as  they  alone  are  qualified  to  partake  of  a 
communication  with  the  Deity,  being  connected  with  him  by  reason ; 
why  may  not  such  a  one  call  himself  a  citizen  of  the  universe  ?  why  not 

a  son  of  God  ?"t 

So  also  Plutarch :  "  It  is  not  so  much  noble  to  confer  benefits  on 
those  who  love  us  as  ignoble  to  refrain  from  doing  so ;  but  to  pass  over 
an  occasion  of  revenge,  to  show  meekness  or  forbearance  to  an  enemy, 
to  pity  him  in  distress,  to  bring  help  to  him  in  need,  to  assist  his  sons 
and  family  if  they  desire  it,  any  one  who  will  not  love  this  man  for  his 
compassion  and  commend  him  for  his  charity,  must  have  a  black  heart 
made  of  adamant  or  iron,  as  Pindar  says."  J 

Cicero  also  recognizes  the  basis  of  law  in  reason  and  its  origin  in 
God :  "  Right  reason  is  the  true  law,  congruent  with  nature,  universally 
diffused,  unchanging,  everlasting ;  which  imperatively  commands  to  duty 
and  forbids  fraud ;  which,  nevertheless,  while  it  requires  rectitude, 
leaves  me  free  to  obey  or  to  disobey.  No  authority  exists  to  repeal 
this  law,  or  to  detract  anything  from  it,  or  to  enact  any  law  contrary 
to  it.  Neither  by  the  Senate  nor  the  People  can  we  be  absolved  from 
our  obligation  to  obey  it.  Nor  is  there  any  authoritative  expounder  of 
the  law  other  than  itself.  Nor  will  there  be  one  law  in  Rome,  another 
in  Athens,  one  law  now,  another  hereafter ;  but  one  everlasting  and 

*  Laws,  Book  X.,  903. 

f  Discourses,  Book  I.,  chap.  9,  Higginson  and  Carter's  Translation. 

J  On  Receiving  Profit  from  Enemies,  9. 


224  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

undying  law  will  hold  together  all  nations  in  all  time,  and  will  be  the 
one  common  master,  as  it  were,  and  commander  of  all.  It  is  God  who 
is  the  author,  the  judge  and  the  enactor  of  this  law.  He  who  will  not 
obey  it  mus£  flee  from  himself  and  spurn  the  nature  of  man;  and 
herein  he  will  suffer  the  severest  punishments,  even  if  he  escape  other 
inflictions  commonly  regarded  as  penalties."  * 

Of  the  divine  origin  of  law  the  Chorus  in  Sophocles'  (Edipus  Tyran- 
nus  says  (864-873) :  "  Oh  that  the  Fate  may  favor  me  in  reverent 
purity  of  word  and  deed,  commanded  by  laws  fixed  on  high,  the  off- 
spring of  the  heavenly  Aether,  of  which  Olympus  alone  is  the  father, 
which  are  not  the  offspring  of  the  mortal  nature  of  man,  nor  does  for- 
getfulness  ever  put  them  to  sleep.  The  great  God  is  in  them  and  never 
grows  old.  Lawless  and  violent  caprice  begets  the  tyrant."  Of  the 
ancient  Egyptian  ethics  M.  Chabas  says :  "  None  of  the  Christian  vir- 
tues is  forgotten  in  it ;  piety,  charity,  gentleness,  self-command  in  word 
and  action,  the  protection  of  the  weak,  benevolence  towards  the  humble, 
deference  to  superiors,  respect  for  property,  ....  all  is  expressed 
there."  f 

VII.  It  remains  to  consider  some  objections. 

1.  It  is  objected  that  there  is  no  agreement  in  the  moral  sentiments 
of  mankind.  Practices  which  are  regarded  as  praiseworthy  in  some 
ages  or  countries,  are  condemned  as  crimes  in  others.  The  answer  is 
that  there  is  an  agreement  in  the  principle  by  which  these  conflicting 
acts  are  justified.  They  who  justify  slave-holding  argue  that  it  is  best 
for  the  slave  and  best  for  freemen ;  that  it  is  essential  in  the  best  con- 
stitution of  society.  Their  arguments  are  appeals  to  the  law  of  love, 
just  as  really  as  are  the  arguments  of  those  who  condemn  it.  Hindoo 
women  cast  their  children  into  the  Ganges.  They  justify  it  by  saying 
that  we  ought  to  give  our  most  precious  things  to  God,  and  that  the 
sacrifice  insures  the  eternal  felicity  of  the  child  and  of  the  mother ;  thus 
they  appeal  to  the  law  that  we  should  love  God  with  all  our  hearts  and 
our  neighbor  as  ourselves.  The  rumseller  justifies  his  business  by  rea- 
soning that  he  must  provide  for  his  own  family ;  that  alcoholic  drink 
is  beneficial ;  that  its  licensed  sale  causes  less  drunkenness  than  its  pro- 
hibition ;  he  appeals  to  the  law  of  love.  In  these  and  all  similar  cases 
the  difference  is  not  as  to  the  supremacy  and  obligation  of  the  law  of 
love,  but  as  to  questions  of  fact. 

It  must  be  further  considered  that  the  same  outward  act  which  in 
some  cases  truly  expresses  regard  for  the  rights  and  welfare  of  others, 
may  in  other  cases  violate  their  rights  and  hinder  their  welfare.  Pa- 

*Fragmenta:   De  Republica,  Lib.  III.;  Opera:   Boston,  1817,  Vol.  XVII.,  pp. 
185,  186. 
f  Quoted  Renouf's  Religion  of  Egypt,  p.  74;  see  74-80. 


SECOND  ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE  RIGHT.         225 

rental  love  sends  the  child  when  healthy  to  school,  but  when  sickly 
keeps  it  at  home.  Our  Saviour  teaches  that  in  a  rude  state  of  society  a 
custom  may  be  left  unopposed,  because  society  must  make  further  moral 
progress  before  it  can  understand  the  evil  and  develop  a  wise  and 
effective  opposition.  * 

2.  It  is  also  objected  that  savage  races  have  been  found  entirely  des- 
titute of  moral  ideas  and  of  knowledge  of  moral  distinctions. 

If  so,  they  are  but  children  of  a  larger  growth.  The  objector  over- 
looks the  facts  that  principles  are  constitutional  norms,  not  inborn 
ideas ;  that  they  presuppose  a  certain  development  of  the  being  and 
some  occasion  in  experience  before  they  influence  action :  and  that  they 
practically  influence  action  before  they  are  recognized  or  formulated  in 
reflective  thought.  The  fact  that  a  child  or  a  savage  denies  all  know- 
ledge of  the  difference  between  right  and  wrong  is  entirely  compatible 
with  the  influence  of  moral  motives  and  action  under  their  influence, 
which  would  reveal  the  moral  nature  to  any  intelligent  observer. 

No  evidence  sufficient  to  establish  the  fact  alleged  by  the  objector 
has  ever  been  adduced.  Travelers  are  commonly  untrained  to  scientific 
observation  and  ignorant  of  the  savages'  language ;  they  found  their 
conclusions  on  a  brief  and  superficial  acquaintance.  Their  testimony 
also  is  merely  negative,  to  what  they  have  not  observed,  not  to  any 
facts  positively  incompatible  with  the  existence  of  moral  motives  and 
emotions.  Even  missionaries  who  have  dwelt  among  savages  may 
deceive  themselves  by  demanding  a  kind  of  evidence  not  necessary  to 
prove  the  fact  and,  in  the  circumstances,  not  to  be  expected.  Thus 
Mr.  Moffat  denied  that  the  inferior  tribes  of  South  Africa  had  any 
moral  sentiments.  Yet  in  the  same  volume  he  relates  that  one  of  these 
natives  came  to  him  in  great  indignation  because  one  of  his  tribe  had 
stolen  his  cattle,  and  dwelt  on  the  aggravation  of  the  offence  by  the  fact 
that  the  thief  was  one  whom  he  had  recently  helped  and  befriended  in 
a  time  of  distress.  All  this  is  palpable  evidence  of  moral  feeling,  though 
Mr.  Moffat  was  not  intelligent  enough  to  perceive  it.f  We  have  also 
the  testimony  of  specialists  of  high  authority  in  anthropology.  Quatre- 
fages  says :  "  Confining  ourselves  rigorously  to  the  region  of  facts  and 
carefully  avoiding  the  territory  of  philosophy  and  theology,  we  may 
state  without  hesitation  that  there  is  no  human  society  or  even  associa- 
tion in  which  the  idea  of  good  and  evil  is  not  represented  by  certain 
acts  regarded  by  the  members  of  that  society  or  association  as  morally 
good  or  morally  bad."  J  Tylor,  the  author  of  "  Primitive  Culture," 


*  Matt.  xix.  7,  8. 

f  Moffat's  Missionary  Labors  and  Scenes  in  South  Africa. 

J  Human  Species,  p.  459,  Appleton's  Ed.,  B.  X.,  chap.  34. 

15 


226  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

says :  "  Glancing  down  the  moral  scale  among  mankind  at  large,  we 
find  no  tribe  standing  at  6r  near  zero.  The  asserted  existence  of  sav- 
ages so  low  as  to  have  no  moral  standard  is  too  groundless  to  be  dis- 
cussed. Every  human  tribe  has  its  general  views  as  to  what  conduct  is 
right  and  what  wrong,  and  each  generation  hands  the  standard  onwards 
to  the  next.  Even  in  the  details  of  those  moral  standards,  wide  as 
their  differences  are,  there  is  a  yet  wider  agreement  throughout  the 
human  race."* 

*  Contemporary  Review,  April,  1873.  See  the  same  conclusion  in  Tylor's  Primitive 
Culture,  Vol.  I.,  pp.  219,  386 ;  Sir  Henry  Maine's  Village  Communities,  p.  17 ;  Re- 
iiouf  s  Religion  of  Ancient  Egypt,  pp.  130,  131. 


UNIVERSITY 


CHAPTER  X. 


THE    PERFECT:    THE  THIRD  ULTIMATE    REALITY  KNOWN 
THROUGH  RATIONAL  INTUITION :  THE  NORM  OR 
STANDARD  OF  THE  CREATIONS  OF 
'   THOUGHT  AND  THEIR  REAL- 
IZATION BY  ACTION. 


§  4O.    Origin  and  Significance  of  the  Idea. 

THE  idea  of  the  Perfect  arises  when  we  think  of  an  object  as  consti- 
tuted in  accordance  with  the  truths  and  laws  of  reason,  and  as  thus 
being  in  its  constitution  an  expression  of  these  truths  and  laws.  I  have 
the  idea  of  a  circle  as  a  portion  of  space  inclosed  by  a  line,  all  the 
points  of  which  are  equally  distant  from  a  point  within  called  the  cen- 
ter. If  I  think  of  a  line  actually  drawn  in  exact  accordance  with  this 
idea,  I  think  the  figure  thus  described  must  be  a  perfect  circle.  If  I 
think  of  a  steam-engine  constructed  in  exact  accordance  with  every  law 
regulative  of  such  a  structure,  I  must  think  of  it  as  a  perfect  steam- 
engine. 

The  idea  of  the  perfect  implies  a  rational  standard  within  the  mind, 
accordance  with  which  is  perfection.  Without  such  standard  the  idea 
of  perfect  and  imperfect  could  not  arise  ;  the  mind  would  have  no  idea 
for  the  words  to  express.  Objects  might  be  compared  as  large  or  small, 
agreeable  or  disagreeable,  useful  or  noxious,  but  not  as  perfect  or 
imperfect. 

This  rational  standard  is  possible  only  because  we  have  knowledge 
through  rational  intuition  of  the  truths  and  laws  of  reason.  The  Per- 
fect, therefore,  denote^  a  new  reality,  our  knowledge  of  which  depends 
on  rational  intuitions. 

This  is  the  norm  or  standard  of  the  creations  of  thought  and  their 
realization  by  action,  in  nature  and  hi  art,  in  growth  and  in  construc- 
tion, in  character  and  institutions.  By  it  we  judge  as  perfect  or  imper- 
fect a  rose  and  a  watch,  a  solar  system  and  a  steam-engine,  the  character 
of  an  individual  and  the  institutions  of  society. 


Ideals. 

I.  When  the  mind  imagines  a  perfect  object,  that  creation  of  the 
imagination  is  called  an  ideal. 

227 


228  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

I  have  distinguished  imagination  and  fancy.  When  the  mind  in  its 
creation  proceeds  in  harmony  with  rational  truth  and  law  and  thus 
expresses  the  deepest  reality  and  true  perfection  of  the  object,  the 
creative  power  is  called  the  imagination  and  its  product  is  an  ideal. 
When  the  mind  creates  capriciously,  without  regard  to  truth,  law  and 
reality,  the  creative  power  is  called  the  fancy  and  its  product  is  a 
conceit  or  fancy. 

II.  In  creating  its  ideals  the  imagination  uses  only  the  material 
given  in  perceptive  intuition,  but  combines  it  in  accordance  with  the 
principles  and  laws  of  reason.     Cicero  says  Zeuxis  had  five  of  the  most 
beautiful  women  of  Crotona  as  models  from  which  to  make  up  his 
ideal  of 'perfect  beauty.* 

Ideals  are  not  obtained  by  copying  observed  objects.  The  qualities 
of  observed  objects  are  used  as  material ;  the  ideal  is  attained,  not  by 
imitation  but  by  creation. 

The  ideal  thus  created  may  be  itself  imperfect,  that  is,  not  the  true 
ideal.  The  error,  however,  as  in  ethical  mistakes,  is  not  in  the  princi- 
ples but  in  the  judgment  that  applies  them.  Taste  is  improved  by 
culture,  as  are  the  delicacy  and  correctness  of  moral  judgments.  The 
liability  to  mistake  is  greater  than  in  morals,  because  in  aesthetics  we 
are  one  remove  further  from  the  principles  w7hich  we  apply. 

III.  The  ideal  is  usually  nearer  to  perfection  than  the  object  of  it 
observed  in  experience  or  expressed  by  art.     A  great  artist  is  above 
nature  and  comes  down  upon  it  from  his  ideals.     An  imitator  is  be- 
neath nature  and  tries  in  vain  to  lift  himself  up  to  it.     Says  Cicero : 
"  We  can  conceive  of  statues  more  perfect  than  those  of  Phidias.     Nor 
did  the  artist  •when  he  made  the  statue  of  Jupiter  or   Minerva  con- 
template any  one  individual  from  whom  to  take  a  likeness ;  but  there 
was  in  his  mind  a  form  of  beauty  gazing  on  which  he  guided  his  hand 
and  skill  in  imitation  of  it."  f     Goethe  says,  "  The  Greek  artists  in 
representing  animals  have  not  only  equaled,  but  even  far  surpassed 
nature.    .    .    .    They  turned  to  nature  with  their  own  greatness.    .    .    . 
Our  artists   ....    proceed  to  the  imitation  of  nature  with  their  own 
personal  weakness  and  artistic  incapacity,  and  fancy  they  are  doing 
something.    They  stand  below  nature.     But  whoever  will  produce  any- 
thing great  must  so  improve  his  culture  that,  like  the  Greeks,  he  will 
be  able  to  elevate  the  mere  trivial  actualities  of  nature  to  the  level 
of  his  own  mind,  and  really  carry  out  that  which  in  natural  pheno- 
mena  ....    remains  mere  intention."  J 

But  must  not  an  artist  be  true  to  nature?     Yes;   and  he  is  the 

*  De  Inventione,  II.  1.  f  Orator,  c.  2  and  3. 

J  Conversations  with  Eckermann,  pp.  341,  342. 


THIRD  ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE  PERFECT.        229 

more  true  to  nature  for  approaching  it  from  his  ideal.  A  photograph 
is  an  exact  copy  of  the  man ;  but  it  is  a  copy  of  him  when  he  is 
brought  to  a  full  stop,  when  his  attitude  and  face  are  least  expressive, 
and  all  his  lineaments  stiffen  and  shut  him  in,  as  an  oyster  shuts 
itself  in  its  shell.  A  portrait  is  idealized ;  and  for  that  very  reason 
it  is  more  true  to  nature;  for  it  presents  the  man  in  his  best  ex- 
pression, which  best  reveals  all  that  is  worth  knowing  in  him  as  a 
man.  So  nature  is  the  expression  of  ideals  in  the  mind  of  God.  In 
getting  the  ideal  we  get  the  real  significance  and  deepest  truth  of 
nature. 

IV.  Ideals  are  possible  only  by  virtue  of  the  reason.     Ideals  are  not 
found  by  observation  but  are  creations  of  imagination  according  to 
the  standard  of  reason.     It  is  because  man  is  rational  that  he  is  im- 
pelled to  seek  and  enabled  to  find  a  perfection  which  exists  neither 
in  himself  nor  in  the  objects  about  him,  but  which  is  the  standard 
by  which  he  judges  both  himself  and  outward  things.     And  it  is 
because  nature  itself  expresses  the  thoughts  of  the  reason  which  is 
supreme  in  the  universe,  that  man  finds  suggestions  of  his  own  ideals 
in  nature   and   discovers   all  things   arranged  in  a  Cosmos   progres- 
sively revealing  the  Ideal  which  is  perfect  and  eternal  in  the  mind 
of  God. 

V.  The  practical  importance  of  ideals  is  the  same  with  the  practical 
importance  of  the  imagination. 

Invention  alike  in  the  fine  arts  and  the  industrial,  is  primarily  the 
creation  of  an  ideal.  An  attempt  to  realize  anything  in  invention 
without  an  ideal  must  fail.  The  attempt  would  be  like  that  of  a  child 
to  arrange  blocks  while  as  yet  it  has  not  attained  the  ideal  of  a  house 
or  of  any  geometrical  figure ;  it  becomes  a  mere  .hap-hazard  juxtapo- 
sition. 

Ideals  are  important  in  discovery.  The  hypothesis,  which  is  the  first 
step  in  the  Newtonian  method,  is  simply  the  creation  of  an  ideal. 

Without  ideals  criticism  is  impossible ;  criticism  is  always  the  com- 
parison of  the  actual  with  the  ideal.  One  cannot  say,  It  is  a  beautiful 
morning,  or,  It  is  a  shocking  bad  hat,  or,  It  is  a  love  of  a  bonnet,  with- 
out an  ideal  with  which  the  object  criticised  is  compared. 

Without  ideals  we  should  have  no  knowledge  of  progress ;  for  without 
them  there  would  be  no  standard  by  which  to  determine  whether  any 
movement  is  progressive  or  retrogressive.  The  expectation  of  the  pro- 
gress of  man,  which  is  so  powerful  in  modern  Christian  civilization, 
would  have  no  significance  if  man  could  not  in  the  light  of  reason  pro- 
ject his  vision  to  an  ideal  to  be  realized  in  the  future  beyond  all  that 
man  has  ever  been  or  has  ever  attained  in  the  past.  What  science  tells 
us  of  higher  and  lower  orders  of  plants  and  animals  is  meaningless, 


230  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL   BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

except  as  man  is  able  to  form  ideals  with  which  to  measure  them  as 
lower  and  higher.  The  theory  of  evolution  involves  in  its  very  essence 
the  doctrine  of  progress  in  the  past  and  the  expectation  of  progress  in 
the  future.  But  the  theory  itself  is  meaningless,  unless  man  is  endowed 
with  reason  that  rises  above  all  the  trailing  sequences  of  nature  and 
furnishes  a  standard  by  which  evolutionary  progress  from  lower  to 
higher  becomes  intelligible ;  and  its  realization  through  the  ages  past  is 
incredible  and  impossible,  if  from  the  beginning  no  reason  has  had  in 
itself  the  ideal  toward  the  realization  of  which  it  has  advanced  and 
guided  the  progress. 

Ideals  are  essential  in  the  practical  life  of  every  day.  The  foresight 
necessary  to  success  in  business  involves  an  ideal  construction  of  the 
course  of  events  affecting  the  business  and  the  action  demanded  in  rela- 
tion to  them.  Teaching  and  receiving  instruction  involves  the  constant 
exercise  of  imagination  in  grasping  what  is  taught  in  its  true  unity  and 
significance.  Controversy  goes  on  endlessly  because  each  disputant  fails 
to  picture  to  himself  the  attitude  of  the  other.  Even  in  morals  ideals 
play  an  essential  part.  "  Put  yourself  in  his  place ; "  "  Do  as  you  would 
be  done  by ; "  these  maxims  require  the  exercise  of  imagination  to  pic- 
ture to  yourself  the  rights  and  interests  of  another.  Kant's  maxim, 
"  So  act  that  you  would  be  willing  the  principle  of  your  action  should 
be  a  universal  law,"  requires,  whenever  it  is  applied,  an  imaginary  con- 
struction of  a  moral  system  on  the  principle  of  that  action  and  its  com- 
parison with  the  true  ideal  of  a  moral  system  accordant  with  reason. 

g  42.    Beauty  as  known  by  the  Reason ;  or  Principles  of 

^Esthetics. 

It  is  only  from  the  idea  of  perfection  that  the  principles  of  a  true 
sesthetical  philosophy  can  be  unfolded.  Some  of  these  principles  I  will 
set  forth. 

I.  Beauty  is  ideal  perfection  revealed  to  the  reason  in  some  partic- 
ular concrete  object  or  combination  of  objects. 

1.  Beauty  is  perfection  revealed,  perfection  lustrous  and  outshining. 
I  do  not  mean  that  the  beauty  exists  only  when  observed.     The  flower 
that  blushes  unseen  loses  none  of  its  charms  in  its  loneliness.     But  I 
mean  that  the  word  beauty,  as  used,  not  only  denotes  the  perfection  of 
the  object,  but  also  suggests  that  the  perfection,  if  observed,  would 
charm  the  observer.    It  indicates  the  connection  between  the  perfection 
of  the  object  and  the  admiring  appreciation  of  the  mind  to  whom  the 
perfection  is  revealed. 

2.  The  perfection  must  also  be  revealed  in  some  concrete  object.   The 
ideal  must  appear  in  the  actual.   The  law  of  gravitation  mathematically 


THIRD  ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF   REASON:    THE   PERFECT.        231 

stated  awakens  no  aesthetic  emotion.  But  the  conception  in  the  con- 
crete, of  all  bodies  on  the  earth  and  of  the  solar  and  all  stellar  systems 
moving  harmoniously  in  conformity  with  this  law  and  constituting  the 
cosmos,  awakens  aesthetic  emotion. 

There  may  be  beauty  in  a  master-stroke  of  military  genius ;  but  it  is 
not  in  the  abstract  thought  but  in  the  concrete  combination  of  move- 
ments by  which  the  commander  transforms  peril  into  victory.  Beauty 
can  be  predicated  of  perfection  only  as  perfection  is  revealed  or  sug- 
gested in  pei-sons  or  things ;  in  action,  or  in  some  natural  or  artificial 
product  of  action. 

3.  The  perfection  revealed  in  a  beautiful  object  of  nature  or  art  is 
that  of  a  finite  object  which  within  its  own  limits  and  in  the  peculiarity 
of  its  own  being  reveals  a  rational  ideal  of  the  perfect.     It  does  not 
reveal  perfection  of  all  kinds,  but  perfection  in  a  particular  object.     It 
may  be  a  beautiful  hand  without  symmetry  of  the  entire  body ;  or  a 
symmetrical  form  without  intellectual  expression ;  some  feature  or  "line- 
ament, some  partial  gleam  of  perfection.     Hence  the  beautiful  object 
must  be  of  a  kind  capable  of  expressing  a  rational  ideal  of  perfection 
and  must  reveal  or  suggest  the  perfection  of  its  kind.     A  cottage  may 
be  beautiful  as  a  cottage,  though  it  would  be  ridiculous  as  a  cathedral. 
Indeed  the  addition  to  anything  of  qualities  belonging  to  things  of 
another  kind  would  make  it  imperfect.     A  dog  may  be  beautiful  as  a 
dog ;  if  wings  or  fins  were  added  it  would  cease  to  be  beautiful  and 
become  a  monster.     A  picture  of  the  human  form  with  wings  may  be 
called  an  angel,  but  is  a  monster. 

4.  Objects  are  beautiful  in  different  degrees.     The  ideals  themselves 
are  of  higher  or  lower  grades  according  as  they  express  more  or  less  of 
the  affluence  of  the  reason  and  the  spirit.     The  ideal  beauty  of  a 
rational  being  is  of  a  higher  order  than  that  of  a  brute  or  inanimate 
being.    And  there  are  different  orders  of  beauty  in  rational  beings.    In 
a  European  gallery  a  Madonna  by  Raphael  and  a  Madonna  by  Mu- 
rillo  hang  side  by  side.     The  ideal  of  the  former  was  evidently  that  of 
the  happy  mother.     The  ideal  of  the  latter  was  that  of  the  conscious 
mother  of  the  Christ,  pondering  in  her  heart  the  woe,  the  mystery  and 
the  promise  of  the  Messianic  life.     Each  ideal  is  expressed  with  the 
power  of  genius.     The  latter  reveals  greater  riches  of  spiritual  truth 
and  moves  the  soul  to  proportionally  greater  depths.     Also  beautiful 
objects  of  the  same  kind  approximate  in  different  degrees  to  their  ideals, 
and  so  may  be  said  to  have  different  degrees  of  beauty. 

II.  Beauty  is  the  outshining  of  truth.  Beauty  is  the  revelation  of  an 
ideal.  An  ideal  is  an  imaginative  conception  of  an  object  as  perfect. 
Perfection  is  predicated  of  an  object  when  it  is  in  entire  accordance  with 
the  law  of  reason.  Law  is  the  truth  of  reason  considered  as  a  law 


232  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

to  action.  Beauty  is  therefore  the  revelation  in  an  object  of  the  truth 
of  reason. 

"  Beauty  is  the  splendor  of  truth."  This  maxim  is  commonly  at- 
tributed to  Plato.  I  have  never  found  it  expressed  in  just  these 
words  in  Plato's  writings,  but  it  is  a  legitimate  inference  from  his  phi- 
losophy. This  Veron  denies.  He  says,  "We  might  with  some 
difficulty  establish  a  connection  between  such  a  phrase  and  the  doc- 
trine of  Aristotle,  which  made  imitation  the  aim  and  principle  of  art : 
but  not  with  that  of  Plato."  *  He  has  made  the  surprising  mistake 
of  supposing  the  maxim  to  mean  that  beauty  in  art  consists  in  the 
exact  imitation  of  objects  of  nature.  In  its  true  meaning  it  is  emi- 
nently Platonic  and  expresses  the  deepest  reality  of  the  beautiful. 
Nature  is  the  expression  of  the  archetypal  thoughts  or  truths  of  the 
absolute  Keason.  An  object  is  beautiful  when  it  reveals  the  ideally 
perfect,  and  thus  expresses  the  truth  or  thought  of  reason. 

Symmetry  is  founded  on  mathematical  ratios  and  proportions.  The 
beauty  of  the  Greek  architecture  depends  on  mathematical  ratios,  as 
of  the  diameter  of  a  column  to  its  height.  A  Frenchman,  after 
measuring  a  column  with  its  various  parts,  calculated  by  these  ratios 
the  dimensions  of  the  Parthenon  and  of  all  its  parts ;  then  he  measured 
the  building  and  found  nowhere  a  variation  of  more  than  a  fraction 
of  an  inch.  A  gothic  rose-window  may  be  resolved  into  a  skeleton  of 
mathematical  lines.  The  relative  positions  of  leaves  on  the  branches 
in  different  kinds  of  trees  is  expressed  in  a  series  of  fractions  va- 
rying according  to  an  exact  law.  The  musical  scale  is  mathematical. 
The  sweetness  or  harshness  of  the  tone,  its  quality  as  inspiriting  and 
joyous,  or  sorrowful,  as  tender  or  defiant,  and  its  harmony  are  de- 
scribed in  science  mathematically  by  the  length  and  rapidity  and 
relation  of  vibrations.  The  beauty  is  the  outshining  of  exact  mathe- 
matical truth. 

These  are  examples  of  what  is  true  of  all  beauty.  When  we  penetrate 
to  its  deepest  significance,  we  find  that  beauty  is  the  splendor  of  truth. 
This  accords  with  the  fact  that  ideals  are  not  formed  from  beneath  by 
copying  what  is  observed  in  experience,  but  created  from  above  by  the 
reason  combining  the  material  given  in  experience  according  to  rational 
truth  and  law ;  thus  they  are  standards  by  which  the  combinations  of 
nature  and  those  of  art  are  judged  as  perfect  or  imperfect,  beautiful  or 
ugly.  By  these  standards  we  thus  judge  the  physical  universe  itself  as 
a  whole,  and  call  it  a  Cosmos  as  ordered  under  law  and  progressively 
realizing  a  rational  ideal. 

III.  Beauty,  while  the  same  in  essence,  is  distinguishable  by  the 

*  ^Esthetics ;  by  Eugene  Veron,  Armstrong's  Translation,  pp.  90,  97,  392. 


THIRD  ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE  PERFECT.        233 

attributes  or  modes  of  existence  in  which  it  is  manifested.  Symmetry 
is  beauty  of  form ;  the  rational  ideal  of  perfection  of  form.  Graceful- 
ness is  beauty  manifested  in  motion.  Motion  on  mathematical  lines 
straight  or  curved,  describing  geometrical  figures  and  rhythmic  in  time, 
or  of  uniform  or  uniformly  accelerated  or  decreasing  velocity,  is  more 
pleasing  than  motion  irregular  in  space  and  time.  Military  marching 
and  evolutions,  and  dancing  are  both  regulated  by  music  and  awaken 
aesthetic  admiration.  It  may  be  presumed  that  all  graceful  motions,  if 
measured,  could  be  described  with  mathematical  exactness.  Beautiful 
motions  are  regulated  motions,  they  conform  to  an  ideal  and  reveal 
mind;  unregulated  motions  are  ugly.  The  attempt  to  regulate  his 
movements  by  one  not  familiar  with  the  law  and  not  trained  to  control 
his  muscles  in  accordance  with  it,  is  ugly.  Hence  the  ease  and  grace 
of  a  well-bred  person  contrasted  with  the  awkwardness  of  a  boor  in 
society.  A  firm  signature  like  that  of  John  Hancock  to  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence  as  a  regulated  movement  is  pleasing ;  while  the 
tremulous  signature  of  Stephen  Hopkins  is  displeasing.  A  curve  may 
be  pre-eminently  the  line  of  beauty  because,  deviating  at  every  point 
of  the  motion  from  a  straight  line  according  to  a  law,  it  discloses  at 
every  point  the  presence  and  control  of  a  mind  realizing  an  ideal. 
Simple  colors  probably  are  merely  agreeable  to  the  eye.  But  in  the 
combination  of  colors  the  imagination  can  create  ideals  and  the  com- 
bination may  have  beauty  in  the  true  sense.  In  this  case  the  harmony 
which  appears  in  the  ideal  creation  rests  on  the  scientific  fact  of 
complemental  colors.  Some  writers,  Lord  Kames  for  example,  limit 
beauty  to  visible  objects.  But  we  speak  of  beautiful  music  as  pro- 
perly as  of  beautiful  forms.  Simple  tones  and  the  quality  of  a  sound 
may  be  merely  agreeable  or  harsh  to  the  ear ;  but  the  combination  or 
harmony  of  sounds  in  music  is  beautiful.  Titian's  combinations  of 
color  and  Beethoven's  symphonies  are  true  creations  of  genius.  Odors 
and  tastes  and  simple  feeling  like  that  of  the  smoothness  of  velvet, 
give  no  opportunity  for  ideal  combinations ;  they  are  merely  agreeable 
or  disagreeable  sensations.  But  these,  and  simple  color,  in  combination 
with  other  elements  of  reality,  may  enhance  the  beauty  of  flowers, 
fruit  or  other  objects  of  sense-perception.  Power  is  also  an  element  of 
beauty.  The  strength  of  a  gnarled  oak  is  an  element  of  the  ideal  of 
it.  But  it  must  be  force  that  is  regulated.  One  never  ceases  to  admire 
the  moving  piston-rod  of  a  steam-engine,  so  regular,  so  calm,  and  yet  so 
mighty.  Unregulated  power  causes  no  aesthetic  emotion,  but  only -fear 
or  consternation.  Even  mass,  though  having  no  beauty  in  itself,  may, 
in  combination  with  other  elements,  contribute  to  aesthetic  emotion. 
Also,  hi  any  mechanical  product,  the  adjustment  and  exact  movement 
of  its  parts  revealing  intellectual  skill,  constitute  an  element  in  the 


234  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

beauty.  In  a  perfect  steam-engine  or  watch,  the  beauty  is  not  merely 
the  symmetry  of  form,  the  gracefulness  and  strength  of  the  movement, 
the  harmony  of  color,  but  it  is  much  more  the  accurate  adjustment  of 
the  parts,  all  acting  according  to  law  in  subordination  to  the  design  of 
the  whole  mechanism.  The  same  is  true  of  the  action  of  man  on  men. 
We  rightly  admire  as  beautiful  a  campaign  manifesting  the  brilliant 
combinations  of  military  genius,  or  a  stroke  of  political  genius  in  the 
effective  combinations  of  a  great,  statesman.  So  also  we  admire  the 
beauty  of  literary  productions ;  not  merely  the  rhythm  and  euphony 
of  the  language,  nor  the  scenes  which  by  the  word-pictures  are  brought 
before  our  minds,  but  also  the  literary  structure  of  the  work  as  realizing 
an  ideal.  For  the  same  reason  we  properly  speak  of  a  beautiful  argu- 
ment. Some  writers  limit  the  beautiful  to  objects  perceivable  by  the 
senses.  But  these  limitations  have  no  philosophical  basis.  According 
to  the  only  rational  and  philosophical  criterion,  every  object  is  beautiful 
which  is  the  concrete  expression  of  an  ideal  of  perfection.  This  being 
so,  we  see  beauty  in  man's  spirit  not  less  than  in  his  body.  We 
admire  the  beauty  of  a  character  strong  in  righteousness  and  lovely  in 
benevolence  and  grace.  We  admire  the  beautiful  combinations  by 
which  a  clear-headed  man  of  powerful  will  overcomes  difficulties  and 
achieves  success.  We  admire  fortitude,  patience,  heroism  when  revealed 
in  action.  Seneca  says  of  Cato,  "  Behold  a  spectacle  wrorthy  of  God, 
which  Jupiter  might  turn  to  look  at,  a  strong  man  in  adversity,  com- 
posed and  intent  on  his  work."  This  beauty  of  the  human  spirit  is  the 
same  in  kind  with  all  beauty,  a  perfection  revealed  in  a  being  or  in 
action  and  its  products,  an  ideal  revealed  of  something  perfect  in  its 
kind;  and  no  consciousness  can  distinguish  the  admiration  which  it 
awakens  from  genuine  aesthetic  emotion  as  different  in  kind. 
IV.  All  beauty  is  spiritual  beauty. 

1.  It  is  so  because  beauty  is  the  revelation  of  ideals.     It  is  essential 
to  beauty,  as  already  shown,  that  the  ideal  be  revealed  in  some  concrete 
form.     The  converse  is  equally  true ;  it  is  essential  to  beauty  that  the 
concrete  form  be  the  revelation  of  an  ideal.    But  an  ideal  is  always  the 
creation  of  mind  or  spirit.     Thus  "  beauty  is  the  fusion  of  idea  with 
form."     It  is  the  revelation  in  the  beautiful  object  of  spirit  to  spirit ; 

"  Something  whose  truth  convinced  at  sight  we  find, 
That  gives  us  back  the  image  of  our  mind." 

The  emotion  of  beauty  is  the  joy  of  the  spirit  in  finding  in  outward 
things  the  expression  of  ideals  like  its  own. 

2.  The  Cosmos  and  all  beautiful  things  in  it  reveal  the  ideals  of  cre- 
ative mind  as  really  as  the  creations  of  human  art  do.     We  know  that 
the  inventions  of  human  genius,  whether  in  the  industrial  or  the  fine 


THIRD  ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE  PERFECT.        235 

arts,  express  the  ideals  of  the  artist.  The  chronometer  whose  move- 
ment is  admired  by  the  watchmaker  expresses  the  ideal  of  its  inventor. 
St.  Peter's  church  is  the  thought  of  Michael  Angelo  built  up  in  stone, 
the  fresco  of  the  Sistine  Chapel  is  his  thought  expressed  in  painting. 

The  beautiful  objects  in  nature  are  not  the  works  of  human  hands 
nor  the  inventions  of  human  minds.  Yet  in  them,  just  as  hi  works  of 
art,  we  find  the  revelation  of  ideals  like  the  ideals  of  our  own  minds.  In 
these  ideals  we  see  the  creations  of  another  mind ;  and  our  joy  is  not 
merely  in  the  beauty  of  the  object,  but  also  in  discovering  the  mind 
which  reveals  itself  in  it.  Mind  does  not  delight  in  matter  but  in  mind. 

The  fitness  of  nature  to  be  a  medium  for  the  expression  of  ideals  is 
recognized  in  the  impulse  of  the  human  spirit  to  embody  its  thoughts 
in  outward  forms.  Man  naturally  builds  his  thought  into  structures 
and  organizations.  He  erects  dwellings,  invents  tools  and  machinery, 
organizes  states  and  institutions.  He  tames  and  improves  the  wild 
grains  and  fruits  and  beasts,  almost  creating  them  anew.  He  stamps 
his  thought  on  nature.  When  men  advance  from  savagery  to  civiliza- 
tion nature  around  them  does  the  same.  Before  man  emerges  from  the 
stone  age  he  begins  to  polish  and  decorate  his  implements.  Tylor  says : 
"  Among  many  figures  (of  animals)  found  in  the  French  caves  is  a  mam- 
moth scratched  on  a  piece  of  its  own  ivory,  so  as  to  touch  off  neatly  the 
shaggy  hair  and  curved  tusks  which  distinguish  the  mammoth  from 
other  species  of  elephant.  There  has  also  been  found  a  rude  represen- 
tation of  a  man  grouped  with  two  horses'  heads  and  a  snake  or  eel ;  this 
is  interesting  as  being  the  most  ancient  human  portrait  known."  *  As 
he  advances  in  civilization  the  embodiment  of  his  thought  in  forms  is 
more  and  more  the  creation  of  beauty.  The  rugged  labor  by  which  he 
subdues  and  fertilizes  the  earth  also  beautifies  it.  Always  as  in  the 
ancient  mythology  the  god  of  work  is  wedded  to  the  goddess  of  beauty. 
A  being  thus  impelled  by  his  nature  to  construct  his  thought  in  things, 
must  look  on  nature  with  all  its  adaptations  as  a  product  and  expression 
of  thought  and  must  see  in  its  beauties  the  revelation  of  rational  ideals. 

Also  the  language  of  man  everywhere  discloses  his  consciousness 
of  the  spiritual  in  the  natural.  Mental  acts  and  states  and  all  spiritual 
realities  are  designated  by  words  denoting  natural  things ;  and  con- 
versely, we  speak  of  the  cheerful  landscape,  the  fierce  wind,  the  furious 
torrent,  "  the  cowslip  wan,  that  hangs  the  pensive  head,"  and  sponta- 
neously characterize  natural  things  with  spiritual  epithets.  The  natural 
corresponds  to  the  spiritual  as  its  symbol  or  shadow,  as 

"  The  swan  on  still  St.  Mary's  lake 
Floats  double,  swan  and  shadow." 

*  Anthropology,  pp.  31,  32. 


236  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

This  is  the  foundation  for  personification  and  of  our  delight  in  it ;  as  in 
Schiller's  "  Prometheus  Unbound : " 

"  I  thought  among  the  lawns  together 
We  wandered,  underneath  the  young  gray  dawn, 
And  multitudes  of  dense  white  fleecy  clouds 
Went  wandering  in  thick  flocks  along  the  mountains, 
Shepherded  by  the  slow  unwilling  wind." 

3.  The  human  body  has  a  beauty  the  same  in  kind  as  that  of  other 
natural  objects,  symmetry,  harmony  of  color,  gracefulness  of  contour 
and  the  like.     We  speak  of 

"  Rosebud  lips,  and  eyes 

Like  harebells  bathed  in  dew, 
Of  cheek  that  with  carnation  vies, 
And  veins  of  violet  hue ; " 

beauties  identical  with  those  of  inanimate  things. 

This  natural  beauty  of  form, 'however,  does  not  necessarily  express  the 
spiritual  excellence  and  beauty  of  the  soul  within  it.  There  may  be  a 
noble  spirit  in  an  ignoble  form ;  and  a  frivolous  or  perverse  spirit  in 
a  beautiful  form.  It  is  hard  to  believe  that  the  traditional  bust  of 
Socrates  m  its  ugliness  is  the  genuine  image  of  the  form  which  en- 
shrined the  great  intellect  and  lofty  spirit  of  that  man  whom  all  ages 
since  he  died  have  honored.  It  is  hard  to  believe  that  a  man  of  noble 
mien  and  countenance  can  do  a  foolish  or  a  mean  act.  Yet  the  spirit  of 
man  is  free ;  it  may  abuse  the  noblest  form  by  acts  of  folly  and  crime ; 
it  may  glorify  a  form  ignoble  as  that  of  Socrates  with  the  beauty  of  a 
wise  and  noble  life.  But 

"  Though  all  things  foul  should  wear  the  brow  of  grace, 
Grace  still  must  look  so." 

4.  Above  all  beauty  of  the  human  form  considered  as  we  would  a 
work  of  art  which  expresses  the  ideal  of  the  artist,  is  a  higher  type  of 
beauty,  the  immediate  expression  through  the   human  form  of  the 
spiritual  power  and  virtue  of  the  living  human  spirit  within  it.     God, 
says  Lord  Bacon,  did  "  inspire  the  countenance  of  man  with  intel- 
lectual light."     In   its   mobile   expressiveness,  its   speaking  eye  and 
glowing  or  paling  cheek,  in  gestures,  in  attitudes  and  motions  the  spirit 
is  continually  looking  out  on  us  and  revealing  its  changing  thoughts, 
feelings  and  determinations.     As  Dr.  Donne  said  of  an  expressive  face  : 

"  The  pure  and  eloquent  blood 
Spoke  in  her  cheek  and  so  distinctly  wrought, 
That  one  might  almost  say  her  body  thought." 


THIRD   ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE  PERFECT.        237k 

So  Milton  described  Eve : 

"  Grace  was  in  every  step,  heaven  in  her  eye, 
In  every  motion  dignity  and  love." 

A  fair  face  without  expression  is  as  Tennyson  describes  Maud's: 
"Faultily  faultless,  icily  regular,  splendidly  null." 

However  beautiful  the  human  form  may  be  in  itself,  it  is  glorified 
with  a  higher  beauty  when  a  noble  soul  expresses  its  true  and  lofty 
sentiments  through  it;  as  when  a  musical  instrument  is  silent  we 
admire  its  richness  and  finish ;  but  when  a  great  player  strikes 
the  keys,  the  beauty  of  the  instrument  is  lost  in  the  richness  of  the 
music.  And  these  expressions  of  character  gradually  fix  their  imprint 
on  the  person.  Every  vice  imprints  its  own  peculiar  hideousness  on 
the  face  and  form, 

"  Unmolding  reason's  mintage 
Charactered  in  the  face." 

Culture  and  virtue  stamp  themselves  on  the  features,  transfiguring 
them  with  spiritual  glory.  Chrysostom  says  of  Bishop  Flavian :  "  The 
countenance  of  the  holy  man  is  full  of  spiritual  power ; "  and  it  is 
said  of  Stephen  when  arraigned  before  the  Sanhedrin  that  all  who  sat 
in  the  Council  looking  steadfastly  on  him,  beheld  his  face  as  it  had 
been  the  face  of  an  angel.  The  highest  human  beauty  is  that  of  a 
form  beautiful  in  itself  and  transfigured  with  the  beauty  of  a  noble 
soul  revealing  its  noblest  thoughts  and  sentiments  through  it.  The 
head  of  Daniel  Webster  was  a  "  dome  of  intellect ; "  that  of  the  elder 
Edwards,  revealing  the  profoundest  speculative  thought  and  the  loftiest 
spiritual  love,  is  a  model  for  painting  the  head  of  the  apostle  John. 

5.  I  have  said  that  the  Cosmos  itself  and  the  beautiful  objects  of 
nature  reveal  rational  ideals  as  really  as  a  work  of  human  art  reveals 
the  ideal  of  the  artist.  I  may  now  venture  further  and  affirm  that  a 
spiritual  presence  reveals  itself  in  nature  in  a  way  analogous  to  the 
soul's  revealing  itself  through  the  human  body.  God  is  ever  living 
and  active  in  nature.  The  soul  that  is  alive  to  the  beautiful,  looks  on 
nature  as  on  a  semi-transparent  curtain  on  which,  from  the  light  be- 
hind, the  divine  thought,  love  and  energy  in  their  ceaseless  activity  are 
ever  picturing  themselves : 

"  The  Being  that  is  in  the  clouds  and  air, 
That  is  in  the  green  leaves  among  the  groves." 

"  He  is  not  far  from  every  one  of  us ;  for  in  him  we  live  and  move 
and  have  our  being." 


238  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

6.  Evolutionists  admit  that  man  finds  in  nature  the  image  and  coun- 
terpart of  his  own  ideals.  Mr.  Murphy,  in  "  The  Scientific  Bases  of 
Faith,"  teaches  that  man  delights  in  the  beauty  of  nature  because  he  is 
himself  the  product  of  nature's  action  on  him  through  unnumbered 
generations,  and  therefore  he  is  pleased  to  find  in  nature  what  he  has 
found  in  himself.  He  is  a  microcosm  and  rejoices  to  find  his  own 
likeness  in  the  macrocosm.  But  the  rational  philosophy  alone  gives  at 
once  the  fact  and  its  sufficient  explanation.  The  supreme  reason  ex- 
presses its  archetypal  thoughts  and  ideals  in  the  universe.  Man  is 
endowed  with  reason  which  though  limited,  is  the  same  in  kind  with 
the  supreme  reason.  In  his  own  mind  so  far  as  its  limits  permit  he 
sees  the  truths  and  laws  of  universal  reason,  and  forms  ideals,  which 
are  the  same  with  the  ideals  of  the  universal  reason  expressed  in  nature. 
And  when  he  finds  them  in  nature  he  rejoices  in  their  beauty  and 
rejoices  also  in  communion  with  that  all-pervading  spiritual  presence 
which  reveals  itself  through  them. 

V.  Beauty  has  objective  reality.     This  is  obvious  because  beauty  is 
perfection  revealing  itself  in  some  individual  object.      The  question 
whether  beauty  has  objective  reality  or  is  only  subjective  has  been  much 
debated.     The  aesthetic  philosophy  as  I  have  presented  it,  makes  ob- 
vious both  the  answer  and  its  true  significance. 

VI.  Beauty  can  be  manifested  only  to  Reason.     It  is  the  manifesta- 
tion of  Reason  to  Reason.     Beauty  is  appreciable  only  by  a  mind  that 
is  capable  of  forming  an  ideal.     An  ideal  of  perfection  can  be  per- 
ceived in  an  object  only  when  the  mind  is  already  capable  of  forming 
the  ideal,  of  discovering  it  in  the  object,  and  comparing  the  object 
with  it. 

This  is  all  the  truth  which  there  is  in  the  assertion  that  beauty  exists 
only  in  the  mind  of  the  observer;  and  that  it  is  the  mind  of  the 
observer  which  clothes  the  outward  world  with  its  own  beauty.  In 
this  sense  we  may  accept  the  words  of  Coleridge : 

"  I  may  not  hope  from  outward  forms  to  win 
The  passion  and  the  life  whose  fountains  are  within. 
Oh,  lady,  we  receive  but  what  we  give, 
And  in  our  life  alone  does  nature  live  : 
Ours  is  her  wedding  garment,  ours  her  shroud. 

And  would  you  aught  behold  of  higher  worth, 
Than  that  inanimate  cold  world  allowed 
To  the  poor,  loveless,  ever-anxious  crowd, 

Ah,  from  th^  soul  itself  must  issue  forth 
A  light,  a  glory,  a  fair  luminous  cloud 

Enveloping  the  earth. — 
And  from  the  soul  itself  must  there  be  sent 

A  sweet  and  potent  voice,  of  its  own  birth, 
Of  all  sweet  sounds  the  life  and  element." 


THIRD  ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE  PERFECT.        239 
The  same  thought  is  expressed  by  Bryant : 

"  There  is  no  glory  in  star  or  blossom 
Till  looked  upon  by  a  loving  eye : 
There  is  no  fragrance  in  April  breezes 
Till  breathed  with  joy  as  they  wander  by. 

"  Come,  Julia  dear,  for  the  sprouting  willows, 
The  opening  flowers,  and  gleaming  brooks, 
And  hollow  green  in  the  sun  are  waiting 

Their  dower  of  beauty  from  thy  glad  looks.'' 

VII.  There  is  a  universal  and  unchanging  standard  of  beauty,  by 
which  the  taste  of  individuals  is  to  be  judged  as  correct  or  incorrect. 

1.  This  has  been  the  doctrine  of  the  most  profound  thinkers  on  this 
subject.  I  may  select  Goethe  as  their  representative  in  modern  times, 

who  says : 

"As  all  nature's  thousand  changes 

But  one  changeless  God  proclaim, 
So  in  art's  wide  kingdom  ranges 

One  sole  meaning  still  the  same. 
This  is  Truth,  eternal  Reason, 

Which  from  Beauty  takes  its  dress, 
And  serene,  through  time  and  season, 
Stands  for  aye  in  loveliness." 

Plato  is  the  representative  of  this  type  of  thought  in  the  philosophy 
of  ancient  Greece.  In  the  Banquet  or  Symposium,  Diotima  is  repre- 
sented as  teaching  that  he  who,  having  fallen  in  love,  has  begun  to 
admire  the  beauty  of  a  young  person,  should  be  led  to  consider  the 
beauty  of  others  and  thus  learn  that  the  beauty  in  every  form  is  one 
and  the  same.  Then  he  is  to  learn  that  the  beauty  of  soul  is  superior 
to  that  of  outward  form ;  then  he  is  to  be  led  to  see  the  beauty  of  cus- 
toms, laws  and  science,  and  to  understand  that  all  beauty  is  of  one 
kindred  and  the  beauty  of  the  human  form  but  a  small  part  of  it.  •  Thus 
not  falling  hi  love  with  and  wholly  devoting  himself  to  any  one  person, 
he  is  guided  towards  the  full  sea  of  beauty.  Then  at  last  is  revealed  to 
him  the  vision  of  universal  beauty,  which  "  exists  forever,  being  neither 
produced  nor  destroyed,  and  susceptible  neither  of  growth  nor  decay. 
It  is  not  beautiful  from  this  point  of  view  and  ugly  from  that,  or  beau- 
tiful at  one  time  or  place  or  in  one  relation,  and  ugly  at  another,  nor 
beautiful  to  some  persons  and  ugly  to  others.  Nor  is  it  the  outward 
appearance  of  face  or  hands  or  anything  in  which  the  body  partici- 
pates ;  nor  is  it  any  form  of  speech  or  wisdom ;  but  it  is  beauty  in  itself 
and  by  itself,  simple,  uniform  and  everlasting.  And  all  other  beautiful 
things  are  beautiful  by  participation  in  this  absolute  beauty.  And  the 
true  procedure  is  to  use  the  beauties  of  earth  as  steps  by  which  the 


240  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

learner  mounts  to  that  higher  beauty,  going  from  one  beautiful  human 
form  to  two,  and  from  two  to  all  beautiful  forms,  and  from  beautiful 
forms  to  beautiful  customs,  and  from  beautiful  customs  to  beautiful 
ideas,  and  thence  to  the  idea  of  that  which  is  beautiful  in  itself,  and 
so  at  last  he  knows  what  beauty  itself  is."  And  Socrates  adds  that, 
"  in  the  attainment  of  this  end,  human  nature  will  not  find  a  better 
helper  than  love." 

This  Platonic  conception,  including  Plato's  view  of  the  development 
of  the  idea  of  beauty  in  connection  with  love,  is  expressed  by  George 
Eliot :  "  That  adoration  which  a  young  man  gives  to  a  woman  whom 
he  feels  to  be  greater  than  himself,  is  hardly  distinguishable  from  reli- 
gious feeling.  What  deep  and  worthy  love  is  not  so,  whether  of  wo- 
man, or  child,  or  art,  or  music  ?  Our  caresses,  our  tender  words,  our 
still  raptures  under  the  influence  of  autumn  sunsets,  or  pillared  vistas, 
or  calm,  majestic  statues,  or  Beethoven  symphonies,  all  bring  with 
them  the  consciousness  that  they  are  mere  waves  and  ripples  in  an  un- 
fathomable ocean  of  love  and  beauty ;  our  emotion  in  its  keenest  mo- 
ment passes  from  expression  into  silence,  our  love  at  its  highest  flood 
rushes  beyond  its  object,  and  loses  itself  in  the  sense  of  the  divine  mys- 
tery. .  .  .  Beauty  has  an  expression  beyond  and  far  above  the  one 
woman's  soul  that  it  clothes,  as  the  words  of  genius  have  a  wider  mean- 
ing than  the  thought  that  prompted  them ;  it  is  more  than  a  woman's 
love  that  moves  us  in  a  woman's  eyes.  It  seems  to  be  a  far-off  mighty 
love  that  has  come  near  to  us  and  made  a  speech  for  itself  there.  The 
noblest  nature  sees  the  most  of  this  impersonal  expression  in  beauty — 
it  is  needless  to  say  there  are  gentlemen  with  whiskers,  dyed  and  un- 
dyed,  who  see  none  of  it  whatever." 

2.  In  accordance  with  the  principles  of  aesthetics  already  stated,  there 
must  be  a  universal  and  unchanging  standard ;  because  beauty  is  the 
outshining  of  truth,  and  the  expression  to  human  reason  of  ideals  arche- 
typal in  the  mind  of  God  and  capable  of  being  created  by  the  human 
mind,  which  is  in  the  image  of  God. 

This  is  only  the  recognition  in  aesthetics  of  a  power  of  reason  implied 
in  all  science  and  philosophy.  The  possibility  of  scientific  thinking 
rests  on  the  fact  that  the  individual  reason  can  come  into  acquaintance 
and  communication  with  the  universal  reason.  All  science  assumes 
this  possibility.  Comte,  as  wre  have  seen,  starts  with  the  conception  of 
man  in  mere  individualism  according  to  the  philosophy  of  Locke,  and 
therefore  capable  of  knowing  only  the  impressions  on  his  own  senso- 
rium.  But  in  his  sociology  he  regards  man  as  so  vitally  organized  into 
the  system  as  scarcely  to  leave  him  his  individuality.  Evolutionists 
also  come  to  the  conclusion  that  man  is  a  microcosm  recording  in  his 
own  organization  the  courses  of  nature  for  myriads  of  ages.  All 


THIRD  ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE  PERFECT.        241 

physical  science  at  every  step  recognizes  the  knowledge  of  the  ra- 
tional in  the  natural,  of  the  universal  in  the  particular  and  the 
contingent.  The  philosophy  which  I  set  forth  gives  an  explicit 
enunciation  and  a  reasonable  explanation  of  this  great  truth  and  ap- 
plies it  in  aesthetics. 

Of  this  philosophy,  the  speculative,  the  ethical  and  the  sesthetical  arc 
three  branches.  They  all  treat  in  different  aspects  the  universal  and 
necessary  truths  of  reason. 

3.  There  are  works  of  art  admired  in  all  ages  which  are  recognized 
as  standards  of  beauty  and  models  of  art. 

4.  Against  this  sesthetic  philosophy,  the  same  objections  are  urged  as 
aorainst  the  rational  intuition  of  the  difference  between  the  true  and  the 

O 

absurd,  the  right  and  the  wrong.  If  men  exist  who  have  no  knowledge 
of  the  distinction  between  the  beautiful  and  the  ugly,  men  like  Tenny- 
son's farmer, 

"  Troubled  no  more  with  fancies  fine, 
Than  one  of  his  calm-eyed,  long-tailed  kine," 

they  are  simply  children  of  a  larger  growth,  whose  constitutional  capa- 
city is  not  yet  developed.  If  where  the  idea  of  the  beautiful  has  arisen, 
men's  tastes  vary,  it  reveals  not  a  variation  in  the  standard  of  beauty, 
but  in  the  degree  and  kind  of  culture.  And  since  the  beautiful  pre- 
supposes the  knowledge  of  the  true  and  the  right,  and  is  thus  at  the 
second  remove  from  the  intuition  of  truth,  aesthetic  ideas  and  culture 
must  be  later  in  their  rise  and  development. 

VIII.  That  which  is  revealed  in  beauty  is  perfection ;  that  which  is 
revealed  or  at  least  suggested  in  sublimity  is  also  infinitude.  An  object, 
the  ideal  of  which  the  mind  can  complete,  compass  and  define,  is  beautiful. 
An  object  which,  while  revealing  perfection  in  some  trait,  also  swells 
beyond  our  sight  and  our  comprehension  and  suggests  the  infinite,  is 
sublime.  It  must  suggest  the  infinite  in  addition  to  some  trait  of  the  per- 
fect; for  the  disgusting  and  the  hideous,  however  vast  can  never  be 
sublime.  Thus  the  ocean  reveals  power  and  vastness  immense;  the 
starry  heavens,  with  beauty  transcendent,  reveal  masses,  distances  and 
forces  immense,  and  combinations  and  interactions,  systems  within  sys- 
tems too  great  for  imagination  to  conceive.  In  painting  or  description 
the  same  impression  of  immensity  may  be  produced  by  leaving  some- 
thing undefined.  Ruskin  remarks  respecting  one  of  Turner's  pictures 
that  the  strain  on  the  fold  of  a  dragon's  body  issuing  from  a  cave 
suggests  the  immensity  of  the  part  still  hidden  within.  Milton's  Satan 
"  lay  floating  many  a  rood ; "  this  indefiniteness  makes  an  impression 
of  immensity ;  while  the  more  detailed  description  of  Sin  and  Death 
awakens  only  disgust  and  horror.  Homer's  Polyphemus,  minutely 
16 


242  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

delineated  with  the  trunk  of  a  pine  for  a  cane,  big  but  not  great, 
reveals  not  the  sublime  but  the  monstrous. 

Sublimity  is,  therefore,  essentially  the  same  with  beauty,  with  the 
additional  idea  that  it  suggests  immensity  and  infinitude.  As  we  rise 
from  one  order  of  beautiful  things  to  another,  continually  ascending  to 
ideals  grander  and  more  majestic,  we  presently  come  in  sight  of  power 
and  perfection  transcending  our  power  of  measurement  and  too  grand 
to  be  defined  and  contained  in  our  ideals.  Then  the  soul  is  awed  and 
thrilled  as  in  the  presence  of  the  Absolute  and  the  Eternal. 

IX.  Ugliness  is  the  contrary  of  beauty.  An  object  is  ugly  when  it 
suggests  a  deviation  from  the  ideal  perfection. 

The  majority  of  human  beings  are  neither  beautiful  nor  ugly.  The 
same  is  true  of  brutes,  plants  and  natural  and  artificial  products.  They 
have  a  mediocrity  which  suggests  neither  perfection  nor  imperfection.  It 
is  only  a  few  men  and  women,  a  few  dogs  and  horses,  a  few  objects  of 
any  kind  that  we  distinguish  from  others  of  the  same  kind  as  beau- 
tiful, and  only  a  few  that  we  distinguish  as  ugly.  At  the  same  time 
we  properly  speak  of  a  fine  cabbage  or  handsome  potatoes,  com- 
paring the  best  of  the  species  with  the  inferior  specimens ;  while 
compared  with  the  rational  standard  of  beauty  the  best  attain  only 
to  mediocrity. 

Any  deformity  is  ugly — a  wen,  a  hump,  the  paleness  and  emaciation 
of  disease,  a  monstrous  birth ;  for  these  are  departures  from  the  normal 
condition  of  the  being.  The  same  is  true  of  stupidity,  awkwardness 
and  vice,  r.evealed  in  the  human  face,  action  or  character. 

There  are  also  species  of  creatures  which  are  incapable  of  beauty, 
such  as  the  hippopotamus  and  the  alligator ;  the  more  completely  the 
individual  accords  with  the  type  of  the  species,  the  more  ugly  it  is.  It 
is  far  from  the  rational  standard  of  symmetry  of  form  or  grace  of 
movement  or  animal  beauty  of  any  kind.  There  are  grades  of  beauty 
from  lower  to  higher;  but  the  grades  begin  below  zero  and  we  de- 
scribe their  ascent  only  as  a  diminishing  ugliness.  On  this  principle,  in 
the  Spanish  fable  of  the  wart,  the  wen  and  the  hump  contending  for 
the  prize  of  beauty,  the  prize  was  given  to  the  wart  because  there  was 
least  of  it.  Such  objects  cannot  be  beautiful,  because  however  com- 
plete in  their  kind,  their  kind  is  ugly. 

Why  such  creatures  exist  is  a  question  of  theodicy,  a  part  of  the 
broader  question  why  evil  exists,  and  its  discussion  is  not  in  place 
here.  It  may  be  said,  however,  that  their  existence  may  be  justified 
for  other  than  aesthetic  reasons;  that  as  related  to  the  Cosmos  they 
may  even  add  to  its  completeness  and  beauty,  as  shadows  add  to  the 
beauty  of  a  picture  and  an  occasional  discord  to  the  effect  of  music, 
and  as  many  homely  bricks  are  built  into  a  beautiful  house;  and 


THIRD   ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE  PERFECT.        243 

that  their  existence  may  be,  like  other  imperfections,  incidental  to 
the  progressive  development  of  the  universe.  It  may  be  added, 
the  common  disgust  at  some  animals  results  from  a  false  association 
of  ideas,  and  scientists  when  they  study  them  find  in  them  positive 
beauties. 

There  is  also  a  certain  technical  beauty.  A  doctor  collecting  virus 
from  a  child  that  he  had  vaccinated,  exclaimed  as  he  rolled  up  the 
child's  sleeve,  "  What  a  beautiful  scab ! "  Another,  examining  a  ca- 
taract, exclaimed,  "It  is  a  perfectly  beautiful  cataract."  A  third  left 
the  house  of  a  patient  who  had  just  died,  and  rubbing  his  hands  with 
glee,  said  to  an  inquirer,  "  The  most  correct  case  of  apoplexy  I  ever 
saw;  all  the  symptoms  perfect."  It  is  a  perversion  of  all  philo- 
sophy and  common  sense  to  call  these  deformities  beautiful.  And  yet 
these  incidents  illustrate  and  confirm  our  aesthetical  philosophy.  When 
a  man  devotes  his  life  to  the  study  and  cure  of  disease,  it  is  natural 
that  he  should  admire  a  case  in  which  the  disease  develops  and  cul- 
minates according  to  its  law  and,  contemplating  it  solely  from  that 
point  of  view,  call  it  beautiful.  And  yet,  compared  with  the  universal 
standard  of  reason  it  is  seen  to  be  abnormal  and  ugly. 

X.  The  apprehension  of  beauty  or  ideal  perfection  in  any  object  is 
primarily  an  act  of  intellect,  to  which  the  aesthetic  emotion  is  conse- 
quent. In  this  respect  aesthetics  is  analogous  to  ethics.  The  aesthetic 
idea  precedes  the  aesthetic  emotion  just  as  the  ethical  idea  precedes  the 
ethical  emotion.  All  attempts  to  construct  an  aesthetical  philosophy 
from  the  feelings  must  be  failures.  In  this  also  the  case  is  the  same 
as  in  ethics.  The  principles  involved  are  the  same  as  in  the  discus- 
sion of  the  relation  of  the  moral  feelings  to  the  moral  ideas  in  ethical 
philosophy,  and  need  not  be  repeated. 

The  capacity  of  aesthetic  emotion  is,  therefore,  distinctive  of  ration- 
ality. The  same  is  true  of  scientific  and  ethical  emotion.  They 
presuppose  respectively  a  knowledge  of  the  True,  the  Eight  and  the 
Perfect.  To  care  for  a  flower  because  it  is  beautiful,  to  perform  an  act 
because  it  is  right,  to  solve  a  problem  from  interest  in  truth,  are  each 
distinctive  of  a  rational  being. 

\  43.    The  ^Esthetic  Emotions. 

The  emotion  of  beauty  is  the  joy  of  the  soul  in  discovering  the 
ideally  perfect  hi  an  object  perceived  or  conceived.  It  is  commonly 
called  admiration. 

I.  This  emotion  is  distinguished  from  all  other  feelings  by  the  fact 
that  its  object  is  the  ideally  perfect  revealed  in  concrete  reality.  Like 
all  other  simple  emotions  it  cannot  be  defined  analytically,  but  only  by 
reference  to  the  occasion  on  which  it  arises  and  the  object  which  calls  it 


244  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

forth  in  consciousness.     What  the  emotion  is  can  be  known  only  by 
experiencing  it. 

It  is  distinguished  from  all  the  natural  sensibilities.  When  one  is 
admiring  the  beauty  of  a  table  richly  spread  for  a  banquet,  he  says,  "  It 
is  too  beautiful  to  eat."  When  appetite  comes  in  the  beauty  is  forgot- 
ten ;  it  all  sinks  into  a  heap  of  victuals  which  harpies  are  seizing  and 
carrying  off.  In  looking  at  a  beautiful  human  form,  or  a  painting  or 
statue  of  it,  so  long  as  the  beauty  is  admired  every  voluptuous  desire  is 
far  away.  No  lust  from  the  sphere  of  sense  may  thrust  its  satyr-hoof 
into  the  presence  of  beauty. 

^Esthetic  emotions  are  also  distinct  from  the  other  rational  sensi- 
bilities. In  the  sphere  of  thought  reason  shows  us  what  is  true ;  in 
the  sphere  of  efficient  action  it  shows  us  what  is  right ;  in  the  sphere  of 
acquisition  and  enjoyment  it  shows  us  the  good  which  has  in  itself  true 
worth.  Distinct  from  each  of  these,  in  the  sphere  of  aesthetics  it  shows 
us  what  is  perfect  and  in  itself  admirable. 

The  emotion  of  beauty  is  distinguished  from  the  scientific  emotions. 
The  desire  to  know  the  truth  prompts  to  ascertain  and  vindicate  it. 
The  emotion  of  beauty  is  not  an  interest  in  discovering,  proving  or  pro- 
pagating truth.  It  is  simply  joy  in  an  ideal  in  which  the  truth  reveals 
itself  already  dressed. 

It  is  distinguished  from  the  moral  sentiments  impelling  to  duty, 
rejoicing  in  self-approval,  or  suffering  in  remorse.  It  is  simply  joy  in 
the  beauty  of  perfection  already  revealed.  In  art  its  immediate  object 
is  to  express  an  ideal,  not  to  inculcate  duty.  A  story  or  poem  written 
to  teach  a  truth  or  inculcate  a  duty  is  usually  inferior  as  a  work  of  art, 
because  the  author  is  occupied  with  preaching  rather  than  creating. 
His  mind  is  not  full  of  beautiful  ideals  which  "  come  like  free  children 
of  God  and  cry,  Here  we  are,"  *  and  whose  beauty  he  is  impelled  to 
depict.  Esthetic  emotion  is  not  immoral,  but  it  is  non-moral, 

"So,  Lady  Flora,  take  my  lay, 

And  if  you  find  no  moral  there, 
Go,  look  in  any  glass  and  say 
What  moral  is  in  being  fair. 

"  Oh,  to  what  uses  shall  we  put 

The  wild  wood  flower  that  simply  blows  ? 
And  is  there  any  moral  shut 
Within  the  bosom  of  the  rose  ? 

"  But  any  man  that  walks  the  mead, 

In  bud,  or  blade,  or  bloom  may  find, 
According  as  his  humors  lead, 
A  moral  fitted  to  his  mind." 

*  Goethe  in  Conversations  with  Eckermann,  p.  63. 


THIRD  ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE  PERFECT.        245 

^Esthetic  emotion  is  also  distinguished  from  the  prudential.  It  is 
disinterested.  It  holds  itself  aloof  from  all  desires  and  calculations  of 
gain.  The  beauties  of  the  earth  are  not  utilitarian  conveniences.  It 
may  be  objected  that  the  abundance  of  blessing  may  itself  be  an  ele- 
ment of  beauty.  This  is  not  denied ;  it  may  be  an  element  of  the  ideal. 
An  example  of  it  is  in  that  beautiful  description  of  the  earth  rejoicing 
under  the  rain  in  Psalm  65  :  9-13.  But  while  the  poet  was  admiring 
the  beauty,  joyful  with  the  rejoicing  earth,  if  a  farmer  were  calculating 
how  much  money  the  rain  would  put  into  his  pocket,  he  must  have 
been  insensible  to  the  beauty. 

II.  The  emotion  of  beauty  prompts  to  share  it  with  others.     When 
we  see  anything  beautiful  we  are  always  impelled  to  point  it  out  to 
others.     Beauty  is  but  half  enjoyed  when  enjoyed  alone.     It  seems  to 
be  arf  instinctive  recognition  of  the  universal  and  unchanging  in  beauty ; 
it  is  for  all,  not  merely  for  one. 

III.  In  observing  the   beautiful  the  mind  is  in  the  attitude  of  a 
Seer ;  it  contemplates  the  expressiveness  of  things  ;  and  only  when  the 
mind  is  in  this  attitude  can  emotions  of  beauty  arise.     In  the  sphere  of 
empirical  and  philosophical  science  the  mind  is  occupied  with  observing, 
generalizing  and  classifying,  with  inventing  and  combining,  with  ana- 
lyzing, synthesizing  and  inferring ;  its  whole  aim  is  to  discover  truth. 
The  "  Eureka ! "  of  Archimedes  was  an  investigator's  shout  rejoicing  in 
discovery  achieved. 

In  practical  life  the  mind  deals  with  the  same  subjects,  but  with  an 
end  beyond  the  discovery  of  truth.  It  is  applying  knowledge  to  the 
conduct  of  life.  It  is  dealing  with  facts  and  truths  as  disclosing  means 
to  ends,  as  motives  to  action,  as  guides  to  duty,  as  disclosing  a  good  to 
be  attained  and  the  means  of  attaining  it,  as  related  to  God  and  his 
service. 

But  in  aesthetic  emotion  the  mind  is  nd  longer  busied  with  investiga- 
tion, speculative  or  practical.  It  simply  opens  to  an  object  to  receive 
what  it  has  to  express,  as  a  flower  opens  itself  to  the  sun  to  receive  its 
light.  It  is  in  the  attitude  of  a  Seer.  Hence  the  name  aesthetic,  that  is, 
perceiving,  seeing.  Beautiful  things  have  an  ideal  to  show  us.  When 
we  get  acquainted  with  them  and,  as  it  were,  get  their  confidence,  they 
tell  us  their  secret ;  they  open  their  hearts  to  us.  Thus  in  aesthetic  per- 
ception we  come  into  friendly  relations  with  nature,  and  see  the  very 
heart  of  things.  Science  tears  nature  to  pieces  to  find  out  how  it  is 
made ;  practical  art  seizes  its  forces  and  compels  them  into  service.  In 
aesthetics  we  commune  with  nature  lovingly  and  confidentially  as  a 
friend ;  and  it  discloses  the  great  thoughts  and  ideals  of  reason  intrusted 
to  its  keeping ;  it  reveals  the  thoughts  of  God  and  makes  us  know  that 
"  He  is  not  far  from  every  one  of  us." 


246  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

When  Kepler  was  studying  the  heavens  his  mind  was  occupied  with 
his  hypotheses,  his  calculations,  his  verifications,  and  there  was  DO  place 
for  aesthetic  emotion.  Afterwards,  as  he  looked  on  the  planetary  system 
moving  in  accordance  with  the  laws  which  he  had  discovered,  he  saw 
the  expressiveness  of  the  system  and  exclaimed,  "  Oh,  God,  I  read  thy 
thoughts  after  thee." 

When  Napoleon  was  planning  and  executing  a  campaign,  he  was 
occupied  with  the  practical  combinations,  and  thought  only  of  victory, 
not  of  beauty.  But  as  we  look  back  on  it  depicted  in  the  stillness  of 
the  past,  we  admire  the  masterly  combinations  of  genius  and  feel  their 
beauty. 

.  While  an  orator  is  speaking,  his  whole  speech  is  an  action  convinc- 
ing, persuading,  inspiring,  and  both  he  and  his  hearers  are  occupied 
with  argument  and  appeal,  and  have  no  time  to  think  of  beauty.1  But 
as  we  look  on  the  picture  given  in  history  of  Paul  on  Mars  Hill,  of  De- 
mosthenes speaking  against  Philip,  of  Webster  in  the  Senate,  or  Lincoln 
at  Gettysburg,  we  feel  that  it  is  sublime. 

And  this  is  the  difference  between  eloquence  and  an  actor's  perform- 
ance. The  former  is  an  action  to  convince,  to  persuade  and  inspire, 
pressing  so  urgently  on  the  hearers'  intellect,  conscience  and  heart  as  to 
leave  no  room  for  aesthetic  admiration.  But  the  end  and  aim  of  an 
actor's  performance  is  aesthetic.  The  same  is  the  difference  between  a 
speech  and  a  poem.  When  public  speaking,  as  commonly  in  popular 
lectures,  addresses  itself  to  aesthetic  ends,  it  becomes  a  play  with  one 
dramatis  persona,  and  eloquence  is  impossible.  The  people  demand  the 
impossible,  for  they  demand  eloquence  as  an  amusement. 

IV.  JEsthetic  emotions  are  frequently  confounded  with  emotions  not 
properly  aesthetic. 

1.  The  emotion  of  beauty  is  not  mere  wonder  or  surprise  which  arises 
on  observing  something  new,  unexpected  or  extraordinary,  as  a  big 
squash  or  beet  at  an  agricultural  fair.     The  emotion  of  beauty  is  com- 
monly called  admiration.     This,  however,  denotes  aesthetic  approval  of 
the  object  and  joy  in  it  as  expressing  or  indicating  an  ideal  of  perfec- 
tion.   It  is  true  that  the  pleasure  felt  in  seeing  beauty  is  usually  accom- 
panied with  wonder,  because  beauty  is  rare.    But  the  wonder  is  no  part 
of  the  emotion  of  beauty.     In  heaven  all  things  will  be  beautiful,  so 
that  beautiful  objects  will  cause  no  wonder  or  surprise.     And  yet  the 
intensity  and  freshness  of  the  delight  in  beauty  will  not  be  less. 

2.  Some  miscalled  emotions  of  beauty  are  merely  agreeable  sensa- 
tions ;  as  the  feeling  of  velvet,  simple  colors,  or  the  pleasant  quality  of 
a  voice.     It  is  not  always  easy  to  decide  where  the  ideal  or  rational 
beauty  begins.    Prof.  Miiller,  in  a  course  of  lectures  at  Berlin,  explained 
the  beauty  of  the  curved  line  as  merely  an  agreeable  sensation  resulting 


THIRD  ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE  PERFECT.        247 

from  the  fact  that  the  muscles  which  move  the  eyeball  are  so  situated 
that  the  eye  can  trace  a  curved  line  with  less  fatigue  than  a  straight 
one.  It  admits  also  a  rational  explanation  already  given. 

3.  ^Esthetic  emotion  must  be  distinguished  from  the  pleasure  of  mere 
excitement.  In  tragedy,  comedy  or  novels,  in  theatrical  and  other 
exhibitions,  there  may  be  the  enjoyment  of  beholding  ideals.  The  plays 
of  children  are  a  mimicry  of  a  life  higher  than  their  own.  In  their 
plays  they  are  lifted  out  of  the  life  of  children  into  the  life  of  men  and 
women ;  by  the  "  make-believes "  which  are  the  creations  of  a  child's 
imagination  they  surround  themselves  with  ideals  of  the  pursuits  and 
interests  of  mature  life.  Their  pleasure  in  their  plays  is  a  sort  of  aes- 
thetic enjoyment  of  the  ideals  of  a  life  higher  than  their  own.  A  drama 
is  fitly  called  a  play.  A  good  theatrical  performance,  like  the  plays  of 
children,  lifts  the  spectators  into  a  life  higher  than  their  own.  The 
same  is  true  of  reading  a  good  tragedy,  or  comedy,  or  novel.  We  are 
lifted  out  of  our  prosaic  commonplace  life  into  contact  with  heroism 
and  beauty,  with  sweetness  and  grace  ;  we  see  life  in  a  higher  intensity ; 
we  are  admitted  to  the  halls  of  nobility  and  the  palaces  of  kings ;  we 
see  men  realizing  the  highest  ideals  in  the  lowest  circumstances  and 
under  the  greatest  difficulties ;  we  are  compassed  with  the  ideals  of  a 
life  higher  than  our  own.  So  far  our  emotions  are  largely  aesthetic, 
and  we  are  recreated,  refreshed  and  healthily  inspired  and  stimulated. 

But  the  danger  in  these  cases  is  of  substituting  the  pleasure  of  mere 
excitement  for  the  aesthetic  inspiration.  Men  enjoy  being  excited. 
They  like  to  be  played  on  as  a  musical  instrument  by  some  master 
mind  who  pulls  out  all  the  stops  and  brings  out  the  feelings  in  their 
utmost  capacity  and  variety.  It  is  mental  exhilaration  after  the  mono- 
tony and  labor  of  daily  life.  Hence  men  may  come  to  seek  excitement 
in  the  drama,  the  theatre  and  the  novel.  Their  minds  become  drunk 
with  them  and  at  last  the  victims  of  a  habit  of  mental  intoxication. 
They  seek  and  must  have  the  excitement ;  and  in  the  thirst  for 
excitement  they  lose  their  interest  both  in  the  beauty  of  the  ideals  of 
genius  and  in  the  simplicity  and  reality  of  actual  life.  In  coarsa 
natures  the  desire  of  excitement  can  be  satisfied  only  with  the  blood- 
and-thunder  stories  of  the  sensational  paper  and  the  dime  novel ;  or 
with  bull-fights  as  in  Spain,  or  the  gladiatorial  conflicts  with  men  and 
beasts  in  the  Amphitheatre  of  ancient  Rome. 

V.  The  emotion  awakened  by  sublimity  is  joy  and  admiration,  like 
that  awakened  by  beauty,  but  it  is  a  joy  and  admiration  penetrated 
and  made  solemn  with  awe.  It  takes  on  a  tone  of  solemnity  and  awe 
in  the  presence  of  what  is  above  us.  Great  genius  has  a  tone  usually 
even  of  sadness. 

It  is  sometimes  said  that  terror  belongs  to  emotions  of  sublimity. 


•248  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

On  the  contrary  terror,  being  an  emotion  pertaining  to  personal  in- 
terest, is  entirely  excluded  from  the  aesthetic  emotions.  The  painter 
Vernet  in  a  storm  at  sea  had  himself  lashed  to  the  mast  in  order  that 
he  might  contemplate  the  grandeur  of  the  scene.  If  he  had  been 
frightened,  the  terror  so  far  as  it  controlled  him,  would  have  excluded 
the  emotion  of  sublimity. 

VI.  The  emotions  awakened  by  ugliness  are  those  of  the  ludicrous, 
the  ridiculous  and  the  disgusting.  An  elephant  "  wallowing  unwieldy, 
enormous  in  his  gait,"  is  ludicrous,  because  he  is  clumsy,  as  if  with  all 
his  strength  he  could  not  use  his  own  limbs.  Drollery  is  ludicrous  as 
a  man's  acting  beneath  himself.  A  monkey  is  ludicrous  probably  from 
suggesting  the  human  form ;  "  Simia  quam  similis,  turpissima  bestia, 
nobis."  A  fall  is  ludicrous  as  a  sudden  departure  from  the  normal  atti- 
tude. A  combination  of  incongruous  objects  is  ludicrous,  exemplified  in 
a  squib  on  George  IV., 

"  The  breakfast  table  spread  with  tea  and  toast, 
Death-warrants  and  the  Morning  Post." 

The  ridiculous  means  more  than  the  ludicrous  as  implying  dis- 
esteem  and  depreciation.  We  laugh  with  the  person  who  is  in  a 
ludicrous  position,  we  laugh  at  one  who  is  ridiculous.  We  get  beyond 
laughter  in  the  emotion  of  disgust.  The  lower  orders  of  living  beings 
are  disgusting  as  revealing  a  low  organization,  an  almost  death  in  life ; 
so  is  a  heap  of  rubbish,  or  a  mass  of  corruption  as  revealing  disorder 
and  decay. 

§  44.  ^Esthetic  Culture. 

Even  with  high  aesthetic  culture  the  perception  of  beauty  depends 
on  the  mood  of  the  spirit.  The  world  is  always  full  of  beauty  but  we 
do  not  always  see  it.  A  pebble  does  not  commonly  awaken  aesthetic 
emotion.  But  as  I  gaze  on  it  and  think  that  it  has  been  floated  and 
washed  and  worn  by  Titanic  forces  through  measureless  geological 
epochs,  I  feel  the  emotion  of  the  sublime.  So  in  the  striking  of  a 
clock  may  be  heard  the  voices  of  eternity.  In  everything  is  a  door 
that  opens  into  the  infinite.  To  the  eye  of  the  Seer  that  door  opens, 
and  his  spirit  is  awed.  In  ordinary  moods  we  do  not  see  the  grandeurs 
and  glories  which  nature,  rightly  contemplated,  is  always  revealing. 

"As  one  who  looks  on  glass, 

On  it  may  rest  his  eye  ; 
Or  let  his  vision  through  it  pass 
And  then  the  heavens  espy." 

But  in  any  mood  the  degree  of  this  power  of  seeing  the  beautiful  and 


THIRD 'ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE  PERFECT.        249 

sublime  depends  on  culture.  The  aesthetic  mind  sees  a  soul  looking  out 
through  all  nature's  forms. 

"  He  sees  them  feel  or  links  them  with  some  feeling." 

But  nature  little  finds  its  way  into  the  heart  of  the  uncultured  man. 

The  need  of  culture  for  aesthetic  perception  is  analogous  to  the  similar 
need  of  it  for  the  knowledge  of  the  True  and  the  Right  already  con- 
sidered, and  needs  no  further  explanation. 

^Esthetic  culture  is  promoted  by  intellectual  culture  in  the  knowledge 
of  the  truth  and  ethical  culture  in  the  knowledge  of  the  Right.  For 
the  knowledge  of  the  Perfect  presupposes  the  knowledge  of  the  True 
and  of  the  Right.  All  spiritual  culture  is  helpful  to  aesthetic  culture. 

Direct  ?esthetic  culture  is  also  needed.  This  is  best  effected  by 
the  study  of  the  great  works  of  genius.  But  aesthetic  culture  does  not 
stop  in  itself;  it  reacts  in  prompting  all  spiritual  culture.  In  studying 
the  works  of  art  we  are  made  partakers  of "  the  vision  and  faculty 
divine  of  genius ; "  for  we  have  revealed  to  us  what  seers  in  the  light  of 
genius  have  seen  in  nature  and  in  men.  In  reading  a  poem  or  in  exam- 
ining any  work  of  art  we  are  examining  nature  and  life  as  genius  has 
seen  and  revealed  their  "  open  secret."  We  are  waked  to  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  wonderful  and  .sublime  realities  in  them.  We  are  lifted 
from  the  level  to  which  conventionalism  has  smoothed  us.  We  see  the 
ideals  which  make  life  noble,  nature  beautiful  and  the  spirit  of  a  man 
of  more  worth  than  a  world. 

Of  this  kind  of  influence  we  have  an  historically  renowned  example 
in  the  statue  of  Zeus  by  Phidias.  It  was  itself  suggested,  it  is  said,  J)y 
Homer's  famous  lines : 

"  Then  beneath  his  raven  eyebrows 
Zeus  Kronion  gave  the  nod, 
And  the  locks  ambrosial  started 
From  the  temples  of  the  God ; 
.  Huge  Olympus  reeled  beneath  him, 

Root  and  summit,  rock  and  sod." 

Its  powerful  effect  on  Greeks  and  Romans  who  saw  it  is  described  by 
Winckelmann  in  his  "History  of  Art."  Goethe  says  of  it  in  his 
"  Winckelmann : " 

"  If  a  work  of  art  is  once  produced,  and  does  it  stand  in  enduring 
reality  before  the  world,  then  it  produces  an  enduring  effect  the  highest 
possible.  For  inasmuch  as  it  develops  itself  spiritually  out  of  the  col- 
lective powers,  it  resumes  into  itself  everything  noble,  or  worthy  of  rev- 
erence and  love,  and  raises  man  above  himself  by  embodying  a  soul  in 
a  human  form ;  expands  the  sphere  of  his  life  and  acts  and  divinizes 


250  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

him  as  far  as  concerns  the  Present ;  in  which,  indeed,  the  Past  and  the^ 
Future  are  included.  With  such  emotions  were  those  seized  who  looked 
on  the  Olympian  Jupiter,  as  we  can  well  understand  from  the  descrip- 
tions, accounts  and  testimonies  of  the  ancients.  The  god  had  become  a 
man  in  order  to  raise  the  man  into  a  god.  The  eye  beheld  the  highest 
type  of  dignity  and  was  inspired  for  the  highest  beauty.  In  this  sense 
we  may  admit  that  those  of  the  ancients  were  right  who  declared  with 
full  conviction  that  it  was  a  misfortune  to  die  without  having  seen  this 
work."  * 

8  45.    ^Esthetics  and  Theism. 

The  idea  of  Beauty  unfolded  in  its  full  significance  discloses  the  idea 
of  God. 

It  has  been  shown  that  all  thought  rests  ultimately  on  the  knowledge 
of  the  universal  and  unchanging.  In  the  background  of  all  conscious- 
ness of  the  phenomenal,  the  transitory  and  the  individual,  is  the  know- 
ledge of  the  abiding,  the  unchanging  and  the  universal.  So  in  every 
individual  form  of  beauty  is  a  revelation  of  beauty  abiding,  unchanging 
and  universal.  In  affirming  this  I  only  affirm  as  underlying  the  idea 
of  the  beautiful  that  universal  and  absolute  reality  which  underlies 
every  idea  of  reason,  and  is  the  ultimate  ground  of  the  possibility  of 
rational  thought.  \Vhether  we  look  at  nature  speculatively,  ethically, 
religiously  or  aesthetically,  we  see  the  spirit  "  ever  weaving  at  the  whizz- 
ing loom  of  time  the  living  clothing  of  the  Deity  "  by  which  we  see  him. 

That  the  True  and  the  Eight  involve  the  idea  of  God  has  been 
established.  But  the  perfection  which  beauty  reveals  is  the  conformity 
of  the  being  with  the  truth  and  the  law  of  reason.  In  it  truth  and 
right  are  revealed  in  unity.  All  beauty  is  spiritual  beauty ;  it  is  the 
revelation  of  reason ;  and,  as  it  is  the  revelation  of  perfection  in  which 
truth  and  law  are  expressed  in  unity,  in  it  the  absolute  and  perfect 
Reason  seems  to  look  us  directly  in  the  face  and  to  reveal  itself  imme- 
diately to  our  spiritual  vision. 

It  is  also  evident  that  there  must  be  a  universal  ^nd  unchanging 
standard  of  the  beautiful ;  but  such  a  standard  is  possible  only  if  that 
which  is  supreme  and  absolute  in  the  universe  is  Reason. 

Also  there  are  orders  of  beauty,  ascending  with  the  orders  of  being. 
A  finite  being,  perfect  in  its  kind,  may  on  account  of  its  limitations,  be 
destitute  of  perfections  peculiar  to  another  and  higher  kind.  A  beau- 
tiful rose  cannot  have  the  spreading  majesty  of  an  oak,  and  an  aged 
dog  cannot  have  the  intellectual  and  spiritual  beauty  of  an  aged  and 
venerable  man.  Our  ideals  of  perfection  rise  in  an  ascending  series 
till  the  mind  rests  in  the  all-perfect  and  all-glorious  God.  "  The 

*  Sammtliche  Werke,  Stuttgart  und  Tubingen,  1855,  Vol.  V.,  pp.  211,  212. 


THIRD  ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE  PERFECT.        251 

ideal ! "  exclaims  Cousin,  "  behold  the  mysterious  ladder  which  enables 
the  soul  to  mount  from  the  finite  to  the  Infinite."  * 

In  the  emotion  of  sublimity  the  soul  is  awed  with  the  conscious 
presence  of  a  greatness  which  transcends  it,  and  is  moved  to  worship. 
Similar,  though  less  noticed,  is  the  influence  of  the  emotion  of  beauty 
at  the  revelation  of  transcendent  perfection.  Hildebert,  Bishop  of 
Rheims,  early  in  the  twelfth  century,  was  filled  with  admiration  of  the 
statues  of  the  gods  which  then  abounded  in  Rome ;  and  in  uttering  his 
admiration  he  declared  that  these  works  of  human  genius  lift  us  above  all 
heathen  gods,  and  that  by  looking  at  them  the  heathen  gods  themselves 
might  learn  what  it  is  to  be  divine  and  might  long  to  be  like  them : 

"  Hie  superiira  formas  super!  rairantur  et  ipsi, 
Et  cupiunt  fictis  vultibus  esse  pares. 
Non  potuit  natura  deos  hoc  ore  creare, 
Qua?  miranda  deum  signa  creavit  homo. 
Vultus  adest  his  numinibus,  potiusque  coluntur 
Artificum  studio,  quam  deitate  sua."  f 

I  46.    Erroneous  Theories  of  ^Esthetics. 

I.  A  great  variety  of  erroneous  theories  of  aesthetics  have  been 
published,  characterized  by  superficial  and  confused  thought,  and  some 
of  them  puerile  and  laughable.     Such  is  Burke's  theory,  in  the  "  Essay 
on  the  Sublime  and  Beautiful,"  that  "  beauty  acts  by  relaxing  the  solids 
of  the  whole  system"  and  that  "the  genuine  constituents  of  beauty 
have  each  of  them,  separately  taken,  a  natural  tendency  to  relax  the 
fibres."  J     Hence  he  emphasizes  smoothness  as  pre-eminently  a  quality 
of  beautiful  objects ;  he  says,  "  I  do  not  now  recollect  anything  beautiful 
that  is  not  smooth  ; "  and  explains  it  by  its  effect  in  relaxing  the  muscles. 
An  example  which  he  gives  us  is,  "  A  bed  smoothly  laid  and  soft  "    .    . 
.    .    .    because  it  "  is  a  great  luxury  disposing  to  a  universal  relaxation, 
and  inducing  beyond  anything  else  that  species  of  it  called  sleep."  § 
These  theorizers  err  in  a  manner  analogous  to  the  error  of  a  physician 
who  prescribes  for  symptoms  without  inquiring  for  the  causes  of  the 
disease.     They  construct  their  theories  from  some  trait  of  a  particular 
object  which  pleases,  without  ascertaining  the  principle  which  declares 
what  beauty  is.     Of  these  theories  I  consider  but  two. 

II.  The  first  is  the  theory  that  objects  are  beautiful  because  they 
have  become  associated  with  previous  agreeable  feelings.     Mr.  Jeffrey 
states  it  thus :  "  Our  sense  of  beauty  depends  entirely  on  our  previous 

*  Du  Vra;,  du  Beau,  et  du  Bien,  Lect.  IX. 

t  Quoted  by  Bunsen,  with  a  translation  which  fails  to  give  the  chief  point  of 
significance.     God  in  History,  Vol.  II.,  p.  268,  Winkworth's  Translation. 
J  Part  IV.,  Section  19.  I  Part  III.,  Section  14,  and  IV.,  Section  20. 


252  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF   THEISM. 

experience  of  simpler  pleasures  and  emotions,  and  consists  in  the  sug- 
gestion of  agreeable  or  interesting  sensations  with  which  wre  had  formerly 
been  made  familiar  by  the  direct  and  intelligible  agency  of  our  common 
sensibilities;  and  that  vast  variety  of  objects  to  which  we  give  the 
common  name  of  beautiful,  becomes  entitled  to  that  appellation  merely 
because  they  all  possess  the  power  of  recalling  or  reflecting  those  sensa- 
tions of  which  they  have  been  the  accompaniments,  or  with  which  they 
have  been  associated  in  our  imagination  by  any  other  more  casual  bond 
of  connection."  * 

This  is  an  application  to  aesthetics  of  the  same  theory  of  association 
by  which  Mill  and  others  have  attempted  to  account  for  our  necessary 
beliefs  of  the  first  principles  and  the  ethical  ideas  and  laws  of  reason. 
This  theory  is  being  superseded  by  the  broader  theory  which  accounts 
for  all  the  necessary  beliefs,  all  the  primitive  truths  of  reason,  all  ethical 
and  aesthetic  distinctions  and  emotions,  as  imprinted  on  the  human 
organization,  by  the  continuous  and  uniform  impression  of  nature,  in  its 
gradual  evolution  through  many  generations.  The  theory  needs  be  no 
further  considered.  I  will  only  add  that  the  advocacy  and  application 
of  this  theory  by  Erasmus  Darwin  seem  to  constitute  a  complete 
redudio  ad  absurdum.  In  explaining  by  the  association  of  ideas  the 
origin  of  the  idea  and  emotions  of  beauty,  he  says :  "  Soon  after  it  (a 
babe)  is  born  into  this  cold  world  it  is  applied  to  its  mother's  warm 
bosom,  ....  which  the  infant  embraces  with  its  hands,  presses  with 
its  lips  and  watches  with  its  eyes;  and  thus  acquires  accurate  ideas 

of  the  form Its  pleasure  at  length  becomes  associated 

with  the  form.  And  hence  in  our  maturer  years,  when  any  object  of 
vision  is  presented  to  us,  which  by  its  waving  or  spiral  lines  bears  any 
similitude  to  this  form — whether  it  be  found  in  a  landscape  with  soft 
gradations  of  rising  and  descending  surface,  or  in  the  form  of  some 
antique  vases,  or  in  the  works  of  pencil  or  chisel — we  feel  a  generous 
glow  of  delight."  f  In  like  manner  he  explains  the  natural  signs  and 
our  instinctive  interpretation  of  them :  "  When  the  babe  is  satisfied  the 
sphincter  of  the  mouth  is  relaxed  and  the  antagonist  muscles  produce 
the  smile  of  pleasure.  Hence  the  smile,  during  our  lives,  is  associated 
with  gentle  pleasure." 

III.  The  second  theory  requiring  notice  is  that  of  Prof.  Alexander 
Bain.  The  one  distinctive  characteristic  of  beauty  is  the  agreeable 
feeling  which  it  produces.  "  Excepting  the  feeling  itself,  there  is  no  one 
thing  common  to  all  the  objects  of  beauty."  "  The  search  after  some 
common  property  applicable  to  all  things  named  beautiful  is  now  aban- 

*  Encyclopaedia  Britannica,  8th  Ed.,  Article  Beauty, 
f  Zoonomia:  Ed.  N.  York,  1796,  Vol.  I.,  pp.  104,  109. 


THIRD  ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE  PERFECT.        253 

doned.  .  .  .  The  common  attribute  resides  only  in  the  emotion,  and 
even  that  may  vary  considerably  without  passing  the  limits  of  the 
name."  The  agreeable  feeling  is  distinguished  from  other  agreeable 
feelings  in  thisAhe  beautiful  objects  "give  us  delight  as  their  primary 
end,"  that  is,  "  they  do  not  minister  to  our  necessities ; "  they  "  have  no 
disagreeable  or  revolting  accompaniments,  and  their  enjoyment  cannot 
be  restricted  to  a  single  mind."*  As  another  writer  expresses  it,  " The 
Beautiful  is  the  objective  side  of  the  purely  pleasurable,"  that  is,  any 
object  is  beautiful  which  gives  pleasure  unmixed  with  anything  disa- 
greeable. He  adds:  "A  cause  of  one's  pleasure  is  not  thought  of  as 
beautiful  until  it  is  conceived  as  holding  this  common  relation  to  other 
minds  besides  our  own." 

This  may  be  taken  as  the  representative  of  a?sthetic  theories  which 
begin  with  the  feelings  without  recognition  of  the  fundamental  principle 
of  beauty  in  the  reason.  It  is  the  latest  product  of  the  fruitless  studies 
to  construct  such  a  theory  which  have  been  going  on  through  centuries, 
and  may  be  accepted  as  their  highest  and  conclusive  result.  But  as  a 
theory  of  aesthetics  it  is  an  entire  failure. 

In  the  first  place,  it  fails  to  distinguish  between  the  beautiful  and  the 
ugly.  It  gives  no  criterion  for  making  the  distinction.  It  gives  no 
distinctive  idea  of  beauty,  and  no  rational  principle  determining  what 
beauty  is.  It  thus  breaks  down  and  fails  as  an  aesthetic  theory  and 
forfeits  all  right  to  be  so  called.  There  can  be  no  empirical  science  of 
beauty  unless  some  distinctive  characteristic  common  to  all  beautiful 
objects  can  be  found.  There  can  be  no  philosophical  science  of  beauty 
unless  some  rational  principle  can  be  found  as  a  standard  of  discrimina- 
tion between  the  beautiful  and  ugly.  But  this  common  characteristic 
and  common  principle  this  theory  cannot  find  and  the  search  for  them 
it  abandons  in  despair.  It  thus  confesses  its  own  incompetency  and 
failure. 

And  this  failure  is  inherent  in  the  method,  which  begins  with  the 
aesthetic  feeling  and  attempts  from  it  to  attain  an  aesthetic  principle. 
The  only  principle  thus  attainable  is  that  things  are  beautiful  because 
they  are  agreeable.  This  is  putting  the  effect  for  the  cause.  It  is  like 
saying  that  sugar  is  sweet  because  it  is  agreeable  and  wormwood  bitter 
because  it  is  disagreeable.  Sugar  is  not  sweet  because  it  is  agreeable ; 
it  is  agreeable  because  it  is  sweet.  Wormwood  is  not  bitter  because  it 
is  disagreeable ;  it  is  disagreeable  because  it  is  bitter.  The  sun  is  not 
warm  because  it  is  agreeable  nor  polar  darkness  cold  because  it  is  disa- 
greeable ;  but  the  sun  is  agreeable  because  it  is  warm,  and  the  polar 
darkness  disagreeable  because  it  is  cold  ;  and  it  is  the  business  of  science 

*  The  Emotions  and  the  Will,  213,  210,  211 ;  Compendium  of  Psychology,  p.  292. 


254  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

to  point  out  the  more  or  less  rapid  vibrations  of  the  ether  which  pro- 
duce these  respective  effects.  So  there  is  neither  aesthetic  science  nor 
philosophy  in  saying  that  the  Apollo  Belvedere  is  beautiful  because  it 
is  agreeable ;  and  yet  this  is  all  which  this  theory  of  beauty  has  to  say. 

We  have  already  seen  that  according  to  the  theory  of  knowledge 
which  develops  it  from  sensation  we  cannot  attain  to  real  knowledge ; 
and  that  according  to  the  ethical  theory  which  develops  moral  distinc- 
tions from  moral  emotions,  we  cannot  attain  to  moral  ideas ;  so  this 
theory,  which  tries  to  develop  beauty  from  the  aesthetic  emotions,  fails 
to  attain  any  distinct  idea  of  beauty  and  sticks  fast  in  the  idea  of  the 
agreeable  or  pleasing.  It  is  a  failure  inseparable  from  the  method. 

And  this  is  the  only  feasible  method  for  those  who  recognize  no 
knowledge  but  what  comes  from  sensation  and  our  consciousness  of  sen- 
sations, and  who  hold  that  man  is  nothing  but  his  physical  organization. 
In  ethics  they  have  nothing  but  the  pleasurable  and  the  expedient, 
which  they  substitute  for  moral  ideas,  and  in  aesthetics  nothing  but  the 
pleasurable,  which  they  substitute  for  beauty. 

While  the  theory  gives  no  criterion  for  distinguishing  the  beautiful 
from  the  ugly,  it  also  fails  to  distinguish  the  agreeable  emotions  awak- 
ened by  beauty  from  other  agreeable  feelings.  It  is  true  that  the  emo- 
tion of  beauty  is  disinterested,  but  so  are  all  altruistic  feelings.  It  is 
true  also  that  we  are  prompted  to  share  it  with  another ;  but  the  same 
is  characteristic  of  wonder  and  of  some  other  non-aesthetic  emotions. 
The  aesthetic  emotions  can  be  distinguished  from  other  agreeable  feelings 
only  by  the  objects  which  awaken  them.  The  very  fact  that  all  men 
do  distinguish  certain  emotions  as  aesthetic  proves  that  there  is  some- 
thing distinctive  in  the  beautiful  objects,  but  this  theory  denies  that 
there  is  any  common  distinctive  quality  in  the  objects  and  cannot  in 
this  way  distinguish  aesthetic  from  other  agreeable  feelings.  An  easy- 
chair  produces  agreeable  feelings ;  why  then  is  it  not  beautiful  ?  Prof. 
Bain  says :  "  An  easy-chair  is  too  confined  in  its  scope  to  be  an  aesthetic 
object."*  If  then  it  were  enlarged  into  a  tete-a-tete,  so  that  it  could  be 
shared  with  another,  it  might  become  beautiful.  But  if  it  were  a  chair 
elaborately  carved  of  some  rich  wood,  elegantly  finished  and  symmetri- 
cally shaped,  it  would  be  beautiful,  however  confined  in  its  scope.  A 
rose  does  not  cease  to  be  beautiful  when  a  lady  plucks  and  wrears  it. 
She  has  appropriated  the  rose,  but  not  its  beauty.  Beauty  cannot  be 
appropriated. 

Prof.  Bain  says :  "  The  search  for  the  one  common  attribute  of  beau- 
tiful objects  has  been  an  entire  failure.  Had  there  been  such  we  should 
have  known  it  in  the  course  of  two  thousand  years."  The  multitude 

*  Emotions  and  Will,  p.  212. 


THIRD  ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE  PERFECT.         255 

of  failures  has  been  because  the  idea  of  the  beautiful  has  been  sought  in 
the  feelings,  not  in  the  reason.  The  result  has  been  the  enumeration  of 
a  multitude  of  pleasing  objects  and  qualities,  a  mosaic  of  pretty  things 
with  no  unity  of  principle.  But  Prof.  Bain  is  mistaken  when  he  says 
that  the  true  idea  has  never  been  found.  The  aesthetic  philosophy 
which  teaches  that  beauty  is  the  expression  of  ideal  perfection  has  long 
been  held  by  profound  thinkers.  It  meets  all  the  conditions  of  the 
problem.  It  gives  a  principle  which  explains  all  beauty  by  the  element 
of  perfection  common  to  all  beautiful  objects,  from  a  China  cup  to  a 
Corliss  engine,  from  a  painted  flower  to  a  Sistine  Madonna  or  an  Olym- 
pian Jupiter,  from  a  violet  or  rose  to  the  starry  heavens  and  the  Cosmos 
itself,  from  the  innocence  of  a  child's  face  to  the  character  of  Jesus  and 
the  perfection  of  God. 


B 

; 

"UNIVERSITY 


&/ 


CHAPTER  XL 


THE  GOOD :   THE  FOURTH  ULTIMATE   REALITY  KNOWN 
THROUGH  RATIONAL  INTUITION :  THE  NORM  OR 
STANDARD  OF  WHAT  MAY  BE  AC- 
QUIRED AND   ENJOYED. 


247.  The  Question  Stated. 

I.  I  USE  the  word  happiness  to  denote  agreeable  feelings,  joy  or 
pleasure,  and  unhappiness  to  denote  disagreeable  feelings,  sorrow  or 
pain.     The  sum  total  of  agreeable  feelings  constitutes  the  happiness  of 
a  person's  life. 

Well-being  is  of  broader  significance,  having  reference  to  an  ideal 
standard  of  perfection ;  perfect  health  is  the  well-being  of  the  body. 
It  means  more  than  enjoyment.  There  is  enjoyment  in  the  visions  of 
a  hashish-eater,  but  not  well-being.  Welfare  is  of  similar  signi- 
ficance. 

The  Good  I  use  as  synonymous  with  well-being. 

II.  The  occasion  in  experience  on  which  the  idea  of  good  and  evil 
arises  is  some  feeling  impelling  to  exertion  for  some  end  or  reacting  in 
joy  or  sorrow,  pleasure  or  pain. 

Good  can  be  predicated  of  non-sentient  beings  only  as  related  to 
sentient  beings ;  as  grass  is  good  for  cattle ;  wood  and  stone  are  good 
for  man  to  use.  We  cannot  conceive  of  an  inanimate  being  as  in  itself 
a  subject  of  good.  It  is  not  for  the  good  of  a  block  of  marble  that  it 
is  chiseled  into  a  statue. 

If  man  were  never  impelled  by  any  motive  to  action  and  were  incapa- 
ble of  enjoyment  or  suffering,  he  could  have  no  idea  of  good  and  evil. 
If  it  were  possible  to  conceive  of  a  being  as  pure  reason  and  nothing 
else,  we  could  not  conceive  of  that  being  as  a  subject  of  good  or  evil ; 
for  the  being  would  never  experience  the  impulse  of  any  motive  nor  be 
affected  by  any  feeling. 

III.  The  idea  of  good  or  well-being  having  arisen,  man  must  have 
some  criterion  or  standard  by  which  to  decide  what  his  good  or  well- 
being  is.     He  finds  himself  impelled  by  various  and  often  conflicting 
motives,  susceptible  of  happiness  from  various  and  often  incompatible 
sources,  and  thus  is  obliged  to  decide  which  is  for  his  good.     When  he 

256 


FOURTH   ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE  GOOD.          257 

has  chosen  and  attained  his  object,  he  is  often  disappointed,  and  finds 
that  he  chose  what  was  not  for  his  good.  And  when  he  has  found 
enjoyment  in  what  he  has  sought  and  attained,  he  sometimes  feels 
ashamed  that  he  has  sought  it  and  even  that  he  is  capable  of  deriving 
his  happiness  from  such  a  source. 

IV.  Two  answers  to  the  question,  "  What  is  the  good  and  by  what 
criterion  is  it  discerned,"  demand  consideration. 

1.  The  first  answer  is,  The  good  is  primarily  and  essentially  happi- 
ness, that  is,  enjoyment  or  pleasure.     The  criterion  is  that  of  quantity 
only,  measuring  the  intensity,   continuity  and  duration  of  the  enjoy- 
ment.    The  good  or  well-being  is  the  happiness  which  has  the  highest 
degree  of  intensity,  continuity  and  duration.     Its  maxim  is  well  ex- 
pressed by  Lucretius  :  "  Dux  vita3  dia  voluptas. "  * 

This  theory  of  the  good  is  called  Hedonism,  from  the  Greek  ydovrj. 
The  name  was  originally  given  to  the  doctrine  that  the  good  consists  in 
the  pleasures  of  sense,  taught  by  Aristippus  and  the  Cyrenaic  school. 
It  is  now  more  widely  applied  to  denote  the  doctrine  that  the  good 
consists  in  enjoyment.  This  theory  and  the  ethical  theories  founded  on 
it  have  also  been  denoted  by  the  name  Eudcemonism,  from  tuSatpoyia, 
meaning  happiness. 

2.  The  second  and  true  answer  is :  what  good  or  well-being  is  must 
be  determined  by  a  standard  or  criterion  of  reason.     This  standard  or 
criterion  is  found  in  the  truths,  laws  and  ideals  of  reason.     The  good  is 
whatever,  in  accordance  with  this  standard,  reason  adjudges  worthy  of 
pursuit  by  a  rational  being,  or  worthy  to  be  the  source  of  enjoyment  to 
a  rational  being.     Or,  it  is  whatever  has  worth  as  estimated  by  the 
standard  of  reason.     Here  is  a  new  reality,  the  knowledge  of  which  is 
dependent  on  rational  intuition.      It  is  the  norm   by  which  reason 
estimates  all  objects  of  pursuit  and  acquisition,  and  all  sources  of  en- 
joyment. 

V.  The  true  good  comprises  both  an  empirical  element,  enjoyment, 
which  is  known  in  experience ;  and  a  rational  element,  worth  or  the 
worthy,  as  estimated  by  the  standard  of  reason.     It  is  this  last  which 
is  distinctively  the  fundamental  idea  of  reason  in  reference  to  the  good, 
and  which  is  the  subject  of  this  chapter.     The  empirical  element  is, 
however,  inseparable  from  the  rational  in  the  true  good,  and  must  not 
be  overlooked  in  the  discussion.     Such  an  oversight  would  lead  to  one- 
sided views  which  would  involve  fundamental  error. 

VI.  In  Hedonism  there  can  be  no  question,  as  to  pleasures  and  their 
sources,  which  is  the  true  good ;  for  all  pleasures  are  held  to  be  true 
good,  differing  only  in  quantity.     In  Hedonism  the  first  and  only  ques- 

*II.  172. 
17 


258  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

ticn  is,  "  What  is  the  highest  good,  or  summum  bonwn  f "  But  when 
we  recognize  pleasures  and  their  sources  as  themselves  adjudged  by 
reason  to  be  worthy  or  unworthy,  to  have  worth  or  to  be  worthless,  the 
question  necessarily  arises  as  to  them,  "  What  is  the  true  good  ? "  or, 
more  properly,  "  What  is  the  good  ? "  Ethical  philosophy  has  been 
vitiated  by  beginning  its  investigations  with  the  question,  "  What  is  the 
summum  bonum  f "  and  pursuing  its  investigations  as  if  the  answer  to 
that  question  would  give  the  fundamental  principle  and  law  of  ethics. 
But  it  is  a  false  method,  characteristic  of  Hedonism,  and  must  issue  in 
falsity.  Before  we  ask  the  question,  "  What  is  the  highest  good  ? "  we 
must  answer  the  question,  "  What  is  the  good  ? "  We  must  ascertain 
what  the  good  is  before  we  can  measure  its  quantity  and  compare  its 
degrees.  This  we  can  ascertain  only  by  going  back  of  all  questions  of 
pleasure,  and  judging  of  the  worthiness  of  pleasures  themselves  and 
their  sources  by  the  standard  of  the  truths,  laws  and  ideals  of  reason. 
And  when  thus  we  know  what  the  true  good  is,  we  know  that  it  must 
be  also,  to  every  rational  being,  the  highest  good. 

§  48.    Hedonism  a  False  Theory. 

Before  discussing  what  the  good  truly  is,  it  is  necessary  to  expose  the 
inadequacy  and  falsity  of  Hedonism.  And  preliminary  to  this  it  should 
be  said  that  various  theories  of  ethics  have  been  founded  on  Hedonism 
or  have  to  some  extent  accepted  it  as  true.  These  theories  are  worthy 
of  more  or  less  disapproval  according  as  they  rest  more  or  less  entirely 
on  the  Hedonistic  error  and  apply  it  with  more  or  less  consistency. 
These  ethical  theories  are  not  to  be  considered  here,  but  simply  the 
Hedonistic  conception  of  what  the  Good  is. 

I.  Hedonism  is  the  legitimate  and  necessary  outcome  of  sensational 
theories  of  knowledge ;  it  is  incompatible  with  the  recognition  of  Reason 
as  a  source  of  knowledge.  It  is  thus  partial  and  one-sided,  not  recog- 
nizing all  the  facts  in  the  constitution  and  life  of  man.  It  constructs  a 
science  of  man  as  if  he  were  a  creature  of  sense,  feeling  and  impulse 
only.  It  does  not  acknowledge  the  existence  of  reason  in  man  or  of  any 
standard  of  rational  discrimination  between  his  impulses.  The  only 
intellectual  act  recognized  is  the  notation  in  experience  of  the  quantity 
or  degree  of  pleasure.  It  is  consistent  with  positivism  and  with  every 
theory  which  restricts  knowledge  to  the  phenomena  of  sense.  It  is  the 
legitimate  and  necessary  issue  of  such  theories  of  knowledge,  which, 
excluding  all  knowledge  of  principles,  laws  and  ideals  originating  in 
the  reason,  have  nothing  left  for  the  idea  of  good  or  well-being  except 
enjoyments,  and  no  criterion  for  discrimination  between  them  except 
their  quantity  or  degree.  Accordingly  the  advocates  of  Hedonism  have 
commonly  held  to  some  form  of  the  sensational  philosophy,  from  Aris- 


FOURTH  ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE  GOOD.          259 

tippus  and  Epicurus,  its  representatives  in  ancient  times,  until  now. 
But  it  is  in  irreconcilable  contradiction  to  the  philosophy  which  recog- 
nizes knowledge  of  truths,  laws  and  ideals  originating  in  the  reason. 
If  we  believe  in  God,  we  shall  not  begin  with  seeking  enjoyment  at 
random  wherever  it  may  be  found,  with  no  thought  but  of  the  intensity 
and  duration  of  the  enjoyment.  On  the  contrary,  we  shall  begin  with 
the  thought  that  the  universe  is  dependent  on  God ;  that  its  constitu- 
tion is  nothing  else  but  the  truths,  laws,  ideals  and  ends  eternal  in  God, 
the  absolute  Reason,  and  expressed  and  realized  in  the  universe ;  and 
that  man  is  so  constituted  in  the  image  of  God  that  his  reason  attests 
the  supremacy  of  the  same  truths  and  laws.  The  good  which  is  possible 
in  such  a  universe  for  such  a  being  must  be  determined  by  rational 
standards  and  can  be  found  only  in  accordance  with  the  eternal  truth 
and  law  of  God ;  it  cannot  be  the  mere  quantity  of  enjoyment  from 
whatever  source  derived.  Even  if  we  say  God  requires  us  to  seek  the 
good  of  all  beings,  yet  the  good  which  God  requires  us  to  seek  must  be 
determined  in  accordance  with  the  truths,  laws,  ideals  and  ends  which 
are  eternal  in  God  and  expressed  and  realized  in  the  constitution  of  the 
universe.  It  is  practical  atheism  to  insist  that  the  good  is  the  aggregate 
of  enjoyment  from  all  sources,  measured  only  by  quantity,  with  no 
reference  to  the  truth  and  law  of  God.  In  fact  if  a  man  try  to  measure 
the  good  by  the  quantity  of  enjoyment,  he  may  find 'himself  incapable 
of  enjoyment  in  the  service  of  God ;  and  the  religious  life,  with  its 
humble  trust  in  God,  its  self-renouncing  and  self-sacrificing  love,  may 
seem  only  gloomy  and  repulsive  to  him.  He  may  see  enjoyment  only 
in  self-sufficiency,  self-will,  self-seeking,  self-indulgence,  self-serving  and 
self-glorying.  In  this  character  and  state  of  mind,  if  he  estimates  the 
good  only  by  the  quantity  of  enjoyment,  he  will  be  led  entirely  away 
from  the  good.  He  not  only  will  not  choose  it,  but  he  will  not  see  it  as 
good.  He  must  make  a  new  supreme  choice  and  form  a  new  character 
in  order  to  appreciate  the  blessedness  of  a  life  of  self-renouncing  faith 
and  love.  If  our  Lord  should  speak  to  him,  he  would  say  as  to  Nico- 
demus,  "  Except  a  man  be  born  anew,  he  cannot  see  the  kingdom  of 
God."  If  an  old  Hebrew  prophet  should  speak  to  him,  he  would  say, 
"  Wo  unto  them  who  call  evil  good,  and  good  evil ;  who  put  darkness 
for  light,  and  light  for  darkness  ;  who  put  bitter  for  sweet,  and  sweet 
for  bitter." 

Some  who  acknowledge  self-evident  intuitions  transcending  sense,  yet 
remain  so  imperfectly  cleared  from  Locke's  sensationalism  that  they 
fall  into  the  Hedonistic  error.  But  they  can  neither  make  it  con- 
sistent with  their  own  principles  nor  purge  it  from  the  taint  of  its 
origin  in  sensationalism  and  of  its  essential  tendency  to  materialism 
and  atheism.  They  are  like  Milton's  "  tawny  lion  pawing  to  get  free 


260  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

his  hinder  parts,"  or  as  an  earlier  writer,  using  the  same  allusion 
to  the  fabled  emergence  of  animals  from  the  slime,  more  vigorously  ex- 
pressed it,  "  their  hinder  parts  are  yet  plain  mud." 

Plato  must  not  be  classed  with  these.  Although  he  does  not  treat 
Duty  or  the  Right  as  a  primary  idea,  and  attempts  to  derive  it  from  the 
idea  of  the  good,  yet  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  he  regards  the 
Good  as  including  in  itself  the  unity  of  the  True  and  the  Beautiful, 
and  thus  determines  it  by  a  rational  standard.  Hence  with  entire  con- 
sistency he  argues,  as  in  the  Philebus  and  the  Gorgias,  that  enjoyment 
or  pleasure  does  not  constitute  the  Good.  Plato's  error  is  that  he 
attempts  to  develop  the  idea  of  the  Right  from  that  of  the  Good 
instead  of  immediately  recognizing  truth  as  law  to  the  will.  This 
error  has  made  his  ethics  indefinite,  confused  and  vacillating. 

In  any  correct  idea  of  the  good  or  well-being  of  man  two  elements 
must  be  recognized,  enjoyment  which  we  know  by  experience,  and  the 
standard  of  truth,  right  and  perfection,  which  we  know  in  the  light  of 
Reason. 

II.  The  maxim  of  Hedonism  that  the  one  ultimate  motive  of  all 
human  action  is  the  desire  of  happiness  is  contrary  to  fact.  This  is 
a  sort  of  fundamental  maxim  with  the  advocates  of  this  theory  which 
they  set  forth  as  self-evident ;  "  Happiness  our  being's  end  and  aim." 
Bentham  in  the  Deontology  says :  "  No  man  ever  had,  can  or  could 
have  a  motive  different  from  the  pursuit  of  pleasure  or  the  avoidance 
of  pain."  But  this  extravagant  assertion  is  in  direct  contradiction 
to  the  most  common  and  obvious  facts  of  human  nature. 

1.  Every  appetite,  desire,  affection  or  motive  of  whatever  kind  has 
its  own  specific  object,  and  is  not  resolvable  into  the  desire  of  happi- 
ness;  this  desire  for  the  object  is  prerequisite  to  the  possibility  of 
finding  enjoyment  in  the  object.     Hunger,  for  example,  is  the  appe- 
tite for  food,  not  the  desire  for  happiness.     When  I  have  no  appetite 
for  food  I  have  no  pleasure  in  eating.     My  desire  of  happiness  is  as 
strong  as  ever.     Why  then  do  I  not  eat  ?     What  has  changed  ?     Not 
my  desire  of  happiness,  but  my  appetite  for  food.     The  same  is  true  of 
all  the  sensibilities  which  are  motives  to  action.     Each  has  its  own 
peculiar  object ;  that  peculiar  object  alone  and  no  other  can  satisfy  it ; 
when  a  child  is  hungry  its  hunger  cannot  be  appeased  with  a  rattle. 

2.  Hence  the  motives  to  human  action  are  many,  not  one  alone. 
They  who  believe  that  man's  good  or  well-being  consists  only  in  enjoy- 
ments distinguishable  only  in  degree,  reduce  human  nature  to  a  dreary 
monotony,  moved  always  by  one  and  the  same  impulse,  the  desire  of 
happiness.     On  the  contrary  the  motives  of  human  action  are  of  many 
kinds  :— appetites,  desires,  affections,  affinities,  antipathies,  preferences, 
instinctive  and  rational,  constitutional  and  acquired,  involuntary  and 


FOURTH  ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE  GOOD.  261 

voluntary,  and  each  kind  including  many  particular  motives,  each 
impelling  to  some  peculiar  object  of  its  own.  Herein  consists  the  many- 
sidedness  of  man,  his  susceptibility  to  a  great  variety  of  impressions 
and  influences,  and  his  capacity  for  a  complex  and  many-sided  develop- 
ment and  a  complex  and  many-sided  civilization. 

3.  It  should  also  be  noticed  that  any  one  of  these  appetites,  desires 
or  affections,  by  transient  excitement  or  confirmed  habit,  may  gain 
ascendancy  and  lead  to  sacrifice  the  objects  of  every  other  desire.     A 
drunkard  sacrifices    health,  property  and    reputation   for   drink.     A 
miser  sacrifices  every  comfort  of  life   that   he   may  hoard.     Louise 
Michell,  tried  for  participation  in  the  crimes  of  the  commune  in  Paris, 
gloried  before  her  judges  in  the  atrocities  which  she  had  committed 
and  challenged  them  to  put  her  to  death.      "What  I  ask  of  you," 
she  cried,  "  is  a  place  on  the  field  of  Satory  by  the  side  of  our  dear 
condemned  brother.     If  you  do  not  shoot  me  you  are  a  pack  of  cow- 
ards."    "  In  delivering  these  words,"  we  are  told  in  a  narrative  of  the 
trial,  "  her  whole  figure  shook  with  passion,  her  voice  rang  forth  like  a 
trumpet,  and  she  looked  the  very  image  of  an  inspired  fury."     Louise 
Was  an  atheist ;  she  had  no  expectation  of  happiness  after  the  fatal 
shot;   she  was  ready  to  sacrifice  life  and  all  possibilities  of  pleasure 
in  her  fury  against  society.     Her  fury  had  wrapt  her  whole  being  in 
its  blaze,  licking  up  with  its  tongues  of  fire  every  other  passion  and 
interest  as  fuel.     Similar   are  the  stories  of  Charlotte  Corday  who 
murdered  Marat,  and  of  the  Russian  Nihilists.     And  yet  we  are  asked 
to  believe  that  all  these  devoted  themselves  to  death  in  the  commis- 
sion of  these  crimes  solely  from  the  desire  of  happiness. 

The  desire  of  happiness  is  one  among  the  many  motives  of  human 
action.  No  man  can  prefer  pain  to  pleasure,  if  pain  and  pleasure  are 
the  only  objects  compared.  If  he  accepts  pain  in  any  case  it  is  because 
he  yields  to  some  other  motive.  It  is  contrary  to  the  most  obvious  and 
familiar  facts  of  psychology  to  affirm  that  the  desire  of  happiness  is  the 
one  only  ultimate  motive  of  human  action. 

4.  This  reduction  of  all  human  action  to  one  motive  is  incompatible 
with  free-will.     If  man  is  constituted  with  susceptibility  to  only  one 
motive,  he  has  no  power  of  free  choice.     He  must  follow  that  one  im- 
pulse as  necessarily  as  a  brute'  follows  the  strongest  impulse  of  his 
nature.    Free  choice  is  determination  between  different  objects  to  which 
we  are  impelled  by  different  motives. 

5.  The  Hedonistic  maxim  is  also  incompatible  with  the  fact  that  hap- 
piness has  no  fixed  dependence  on  outward'objects,  but  is  relative  to  and 
dependent  on  the  subjective  state  of  the  man  himself.    We  do  not  desire 
any  object  because  it  imparts  happiness ;  but  the  object  imparts  happi- 
ness because  we  desire  it. 


262  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

The  Hedonist  may  reply  to  the  arguments  which  I  have  been  present- 
ing that  he  does  not  mean  that  happiness  is  the  only  motive  of  human 
action,  but  that  it  is  the  ultimate  motive ;  we  admit,  he  may  say,  that 
every  feeling  which  moves  man  to  action  has  its  peculiar  and  specific 
object,  and  that  thus  man  is  influenced  by  many  motives ;  but  we 
affirm  that  in  all  these  the  ultimate  motive  is  the  enjoyment  which  is  to 
result.  The  point  which  I  now  make  is  that  the  Hedonistic  maxim  as 
thus  explained  is  still  in  direct  contradiction  to  obvious  and  fundamen- 
tal facts  hi  the  constitution  and  action  of  man.  For  the  happiness  does 
not  exist  as  an  antecedent  objective  reality,  but  is  itself  the  result  of  the 
man's  own  desire  or  choice  of  the  object.  Happiness  is  the  smile  that 
beams  on  the  gratification  of  desire.  As  a  man  is  not  happy  in  order 
to  smile,  but  smiles  because  he  is  happy  already,  so  a  man  does  not 
desire  and  choose  an  object  in  order  to  be  happy ;  but  he  is  happy  in 
the  object  because  he  desires  and  chooses  it. 

Happiness  is  not  bottled  up  in  outward  things,  so  much  happiness  in 
a  house  and  grounds,  so  much  in  horses  and  equipage,  and  whoever  gets 
the  object  gets  the  same  definite  amount  of  enjoyment.  But  whether  a 
person  finds  any  enjoyment  whatever  in  an  object  depends  on  the  state 
of  his  own  heart  towards  it. 

Hence  every  new  affection  opens  a  new  source  of  enjoyment.  Here 
is  a  young  man  whose  present  enjoyment  consists  in  spending  his  earn- 
ings in  clothing,  horses  and  the  like.  By  and  by  the  love  of  wife  and 
children  is  in  his  heart,  and  that  new  love  has  opened  to  him  new 
motives  of  action,  new  objects  of  interest,  new  sources  of  enjoyment, 
a  new  world  in  wrhich  to  expatiate.  He  is  born  again  into  a  new 
life.  Or  he  travels  and  becomes  interested  in  art;  he  studies 
botany  and  becomes  interested  in  plants,  or  geology  and  becomes 
interested  in  the  structure  of  the  earth ;  or  he  identifies  himself  with 
some  moral  reform  or  some  political  party ;  and  each  new  motive 
opens  a  new  wTorld  of  joy,  a  spring  of  living  water  flowing  out  of 
the  man  and  clothing  with  verdure  and  fertility  what  to  him  had 
been  a  desert. 

And  in  many  cases  of  this  kind,  what,  after  the  new  love  has  sprung 
up,  is  a  source  of  joy,  had  been  before  disgusting ;  a  boy  who  hates  to 
study  may  become  afterwards  a  lover  of  learning ;  a  debauchee,  to 
whom  a  sober  and  religious  life  is  repulsive,  may  come  to  love  God,  to 
rejoice  hi  sobriety,  purity,  beneficence  and  devotion,  while  his  former 
debauchery  in  its  turn  becomes  disgusting.  As  Paul  describes  his  own 
experience  in  his  conversion,*what  he  had  regarded  as  loss  became  gain, 
and  what  he  had  regarded  as  gain  became  loss. 

Evidently  in  these  cases  it  is  not  the  enjoyment  which  kindles  the 
desire  or  affection  or  choice,  but  the  desire,  affection  or  choice  which 


FOURTH   ULTIMATE    IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE  GOOD.          233 

kindles  the  enjoyment.  Happiness,  therefore,  cannot  be  the  ultimate 
motive  of  all  action.  * 

III.  The  Hedonistic  maxim  that,  all  pleasures  are  of  the  same  kind 
and  equal  worth,  and  are  distinguishable  only  by  their  degree  of  inten- 
sity, continuity  and  duration,  is  contrary  to  the  facts  of  human  nature 
and  action. 

1.  Since  happiness  does  not  exist  in  objective  reality,  but  is  wholly 
relative  to  and  dependent  on  the  subjective  state  of  the  person,  enjoy- 
ments must  be  discriminated  from  each  other  and  cannot  be  grouped 
together  as  of  the  same  kind. 

They  must  be  distinguished  by  their  subjective  sources.  The  enjoy- 
ments arising  from  gluttony,  drunkenness  and  licentiousness  are  not  the 
same  in  kind  with  those  arising  from  intellectual  discovery,  virtuous 
character  and  the  achievements  of  Christian  beneficence.  The  joys  of 
sin  are  not  like  the  joys  of  holiness.  The  joy  of  communing  with  a 
harlot  is  not  the  same  with  the  joy  of  communing  with  God.  The  joy 
of  miserliness  is  not  the  same  with  the  joy  of  beneficence.  It  would  be 
impossible  to  convince  a  converted  debauchee  that  the  pleasures  of  his 
debauchery,  the  remembrance  of  which  fills  him  with  shuddering  and 
disgust,  were  the  same  in  kind  with  the  pleasures  of  his  present  sobriety, 
industry  and  piety. 

Pleasures  are  also  discriminated  by  their  tendency.  They  are  mo- 
tives. The  drunkard's  enjoyments  are  a  stimulus  to  new  excesses.  The 
sinner's  pleasure  in  sin  impels  him  on  in  sinning.  By  his  own  prefer- 
ence and  choice  he  gravitates  downward ;  he  finds  his  happiness  in  sin ; 
he  regards  it  as  his  good ;  he  thinks  it  impossible  to  enjoy  a  life  of  virtue 


*  Pres.  Edwards  says :  "  Some  say  that  all  love  arises  from  self-love ;  and  that  it  is 
impossible  in  the  nature  of  things  for  any  man  to  have  any  love  to  God  or  any  other 
being  but  that  love  to  himself  must  be  the  foundation  of  it.  But  I  humbly  suppose 
that  it  is  for  want  of  consideration  that  they  say  so.  They  argue  that  whoever  loves 
God  and  so  desires  his  glory  or  the  enjoyment  of  him,  desires  these  things  as  his  own 
happiness.  The  glory  of  God  and  the  beholding  and  enjoying  his  perfections  are 
considered  as  things  agreeable  to  him,  tending  to  make  him  happy.  And  so  they  say 
it  is  through  self-love  or  a  desire  of  his  own  happiness  that  he  desires  God  should  be 
glorified  and  desires  to  behold  and  enjoy  his  glorious  perfections.  There  is  no  doubt 
tlv.it  "fter  God's  glory  and  beholding  his  perfections  are  become  so  agreeable  to  him, 
he  will  desire  them  as  his  own  happiness.  But  how  came  these  things  to  be  so  agree- 
able to  him  that  he  esteems  it  his  highest  happiness  to  glorify  God?  Is  not  this  the 
fruit  of  love  ?  Must  not  a  man  first  love  God  and  have  his  heart  united  to  him,  before 
he  will  esteem  God's  good  his  own,  and  before  he  will  desire  the  glorifying  of  God  as 
his  own  happiness?  It  is  not  strong  arguing  that,  because  after  a  man  has  his  heart 
united  to  God  in  love  and,  as  a  fruit  of  this,  desires  God's  glory  as  his  own  happiness, 
therefore  a  desire  of  his  own  happiness  must  needs  be  the  cause  and  foundation  of  his 
love ;  unless  it  be  strong  reasoning  that  because  a  father  begat  a  son,  therefore  his  sou 
certainly  begat  him." 


264  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

and  godliness.  He  "  cannot  see  the  kingdom  of  heaven."  With  his 
eager  joy  in  sin  he  stoops  downward  as  he  runs  and  his  "  steps  take  hold 
on  hell."  But  the  Christian's  joy  is  an  impulse  to  Christian  service,  an 
inspiration  for  good,  a  strengthening  of  faith  and  love ;  it  gives  wings 
to  bear  him  nearer  to  God. 

2.  Enjoyments  are  not  essentially  good,  but  may  be  evil.     That  a 
person  is  happy  is  no  proof  of  his  well-being. 

Because  they  are  inseparable  from  the  subjective  state  of  the  person, 
enjoyments  cannot  of  themselves  alone  constitute  the  good  or  well-being 
of  a  man.  The  character  of  the  person  which  makes  the  enjoyment 
possible  must  be  an  element  in  the  good.  As  Tennyson  says,  "  Better 
thirty  years  of  Europe  than  a  cycle  of  Cathay."  When  a  man  enjoys 
to-day  what  disgusts  him  to-morrow,  when  one  enjoys  what  disgusts 
another,  these  joys  cannot  be  alike  and  indiscriminately  the  good  or 
well-being  of  man. 

Pleasure  therefore  may  be  evil  and  not  good.  The  pleasure  which 
breathes  from  an  evil  character  and  which  would  give  place  to  sorrow 
if  the  character  were  good,  cannot  be  good,  but  must  itself  be  evil.  The 
pleasure  which  impels  the  sinner  to  more  wickedness,  which  precludes 
the  capacity  of  joy  in  right  living,  which  the  sinner  chooses  as  his  good 
and  so  brings  on  himself  the  woe  pronounced  on  those  who  call  evil 
good  and  good  evil,  this  pleasure  is  not  good,  but  evil.  The  sinner 
finding  his  enjoyment  in  this  may  fitly  exclaim  with  Milton's  Satan, 

"  All  good  to  me  is  lost ;  evil  be  thou  my  good." 

The  worst  evil  of  sin  is  the  joy  which  the  sinner  feels  in  it. 

3.  Enjoyments  must  also  be  distinguished  as  to  their  essential  worth. 

Man  is  a  rational  being.  In  the  normal  development  of  his  consti- 
tution he  has  the  fundamental  ideas  of  reason,  Truth,  Law  and  Per- 
fection. Any  theory  of  human  life  which  ignores  this  great  fact  must 
be  fundamentally  wrong.  It  is  only  by  rigidly  excluding  all  cognizance 
of  this  fact  that  it  is  possible  to  regard  all  pleasure  as  of  the  same  quality, 
dignity  and  worth. 

4.  Accordingly  the  common  sense  of  mankind  rejects  the  doctrine. 
It  is  impossible  to  attach  the  same  quality,  dignity  and  worth  to  the 
pleasure  of  a  pig  with  one  foot  in  the  trough,  and  the  joy  of  Archi- 
medes shouting  Eureka,  at  a  discovery  of  the  method  of  ascertaining 
specific  gravity ;   to  the  maudlin  happiness  of  a  drunken  man  and 
the  solemn  ecstasy  of  Kepler,  when  he  exclaimed,  "  Oh,  God,  I  read 
thy  thoughts  after  thee ; "  to  the  joy  of  a  pinched  and  skinny  miser 
and  the  enthusiasm  of  a  Raphael  putting  the  creations  of  his  genius 
on  the  canvas ;  to  the  devilish  glee  of  Nero  in  his  atrocities  and  the 


FOURTH  ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE  GOOD.          265 

joy  of  Paul  suffering  the  loss  of  all  things  in  his  labor  to  save  his 
fellow-men  and  his  rapture  in  his  dungeon  triumphant  in  the  face  of 
a  bloody  death.  The  Hedonistic  doctrine  that  all  these  joys  are  of 
the  same  quality  and  distinguishable  only  in  quantity  is  contrary  to 
reason  and  common  sense.  It  does  violence  also  to  the  deepest  and 
best  sentiments  of  the  human  heart,  which  rise  in  indignation  against 
it.  As  John  Locke  said  that  the  love  of  virtue  is  the  same  in  kind 
with  the  love  of  grapes,  this  theory  degrades  the  loftiest  of  human  joys 
to  the  level  of  swinish  enjoyment ;  it  pours  them  all  into  the  same 
barrel  to  be  measured  out  by  the  pailful  like  swill.  If  this  theory 
were  true,  then,  as  Plato  twice  intimates,  it  would  be  wise  for  a  man  to 
catch  the  itch  for  the  pleasure  of  scratching.*  And  the  pleasure  of 
Sidney  Smith's  cattle,  rubbing  their  backs  under  the  sloping  pole 
which  he  had  contrived  to  accommodate  them  all  from  the  smallest  calf 
to  the  tallest  ox,  would  be  the  same  in  kind  with  the  amused  and 
kindly  gratification  of  their  ow^ner  in  seeing  the  happy  effects  of  his 
contrivance. 

In  fact  it  is  according  to  the  common  consent  of  mankind  that  pains 
and  sorrows  may  be  of  more  dignity  and  worth  than  joys.  Witness  the 
universal  admiration  of  Rebekah  hi  Scott's  Ivanhoe  as  she  stood  on  the 
summit  of  the  tower  ready  to  fling  herself  down ;  of  Leonidas  and  his 
Spartans  giving  their  lives  for  their  country  ;  of  John  Howard  visiting 
the  prisons  of  all  Europe  and  finally  sacrificing  his  life  to  reform  their 
discipline.  Even  J.  S.  Mill,  though  himself  a  Utilitarian,  is  obliged  to 
confess,  "  It  is  better  to  be  a  human  being  dissatisfied  than  to  be  a  pig 
satisfied ;  better  to  be  Socrates  dissatisfied  than  a  fool  satisfied."  f  This 
is  the  admission  that  other  elements  than  happiness  enter  into  the  idea 
of  the  good.  Mr.  Mulford  truly  and  forcibly  says,  "  There  has  been  no 
nation  but  in  the  beginnings  of  its  history  ther3  was  a  consciousness  of 
a  relation  to  a  world  which  it  did  not  conquer  with  its  swords  and 
whose  fruits  it  did  not  gather  in  its  barns  nor  exchange  in  its  markets. 
There  has  been  none  which,  in  the  greater  periods  of  its  history,  did 
not  recognize  ends  whose  worth  had  no  estimate  in  material  values,  and 
in  the  crises  of  its  history  did  not  call  for  an  effort  for  which  its  econo- 
mists could  find  no  rate  of  compensation  in  the  wages  of  labor."  J 

IV.  Hedonism  gives  no  available  test  for  discriminating  the  superior 
from  the  inferior  good,  even  according  to  its  own  principle  that  enjoy- 
ments are  to  be  compared  only  by  quantity  or  degree  of  intensity, 
continuity  and  duration. 

It  is  impossible  to  determine  by  observation  what  will  give  the  most 

*  Gorgias,  494.     Philebus,  46.  f  Utilitarianism,  p.  42. 

J  Republic  of  God,  p.  99. 


266  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

happiness  during  the  whole  of  existence.  We  cannot  see  into  the 
future ;  and  so  complicated  and  far-reaching  are  the  influences  and 
results  of  our  actions  that  no  one  can  deter  mine  empirically  what  the 
aggregate  effect  on  his  happiness  will  be. 

Another  reason  is  the  fact  that  happiness  depends  on  a  person's 
desires  and  preferences ;  what  a  person  enjoys  with  his  present  cha- 
racter, tastes  and  preferences,  he  may  presently,  through  a  change 
in  himself,  become  incapable  of  enjoying ;  hence  he  may  prefer  what  is 
really  evil  to  what  is  really  good,  and  may  find  all  the  enjoyment  of 
which  he  is  now  capable  in  the  evil  and  be  incapable  of  enjoying  the 
good. 

This  theory  gives  no  test  for  distinguishing  the  superior  from  the 
inferior  good,  or  for  determining  what  course  of  action  will  insure  the 
highest  good.  Thus  it  fails  in  distinguishing  enjoyments  as  to  their 
quantity  as  really  as  it  fails  to  distinguish  them  as  to  quality,  dignity 
and  worth.  In  either  case  the  only  criterion  is  in  the  principles,  laws 
and  ideals  of  reason.  Whatever  accords  with  these  is  at  once  the  true 
and  the  highest  good.  This  is  a  test  always  present  and  available. 

V.  Hedonism  is  incompatible  with  any  fundamental  and  essential 
distinction  of  right  and  wrong.  It  attempts  to  derive  the  idea  of  right 
from  that  of  happiness.  But  the  idea  of  right  cannot  be  developed  from 
the  idea  of  happiness.  Hedonism,  starting  with  the  idea  of  the  good  as 
consisting  in  indiscriminate  enjoyment,  can  never  lift  itself  out  of  that 
idea  to  the  idea  of  right  and  law.  It  must  stick  inextricably  in  the 
idea  of  the  pleasurable  and  the  expedient.  This,  however,  is  not  the 
place  to  consider  the  ethical  bearing  of  this  theory. 

(j  49.    The  Good  Estimated  by  the  Standard  of  Reason. 

I.  The  rational  standard  or  criterion  by  which  the  good  is  ascertained 
and  distinguished  from  evil  is  the  truths,  laws  and  ideals  of  reason.  I 
cannot  begin  with  the  fact  of  enjoyment  and  say,  "  I  enjoy  this,  there- 
fore it  is  good."  I  must  bring  the  objects,  achievements  and  acquisi- 
tions which  are  the  sources  of  joy  into  the  light  of  reason  and  in  that 
light  approve  or  disapprove  them  and  the  happiness  which  they 
occasion. 

Thus  the  answer  to  the  question,  "  What  is  the  Good  ?  "  is  analogous 
to  the  answers  to  the  questions,  "  What  is  the  True,  the  Eight,  the 
Perfect?" 

It  has  been  shown  in  respect  to  each  of  the  three  that  the  attempt  to 
develop  them  from  the  feelings  fails  to  give  any  real  distinction  between 
the  true  and  the  absurd,  the  right  and  the  wrong,  the  perfect  and  the 
imperfect,  and  even  to  attain  the  ideas  of  truth,  law  and  perfection. 
The  same  is  true  of  the  distinction  of  good  and  evil.  It  cannot  be 


FOURTH  ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF   REASON:    THE  GOOD.          267 

determined  from  the  feelings,  but  only  from  the  reason.  So  Kant 
affirms :  "  Heteronomy  and  a  falsification  of  the  moral  principles  is  the 
inevitable  result  if,  without  regard  to  the  law,  any  object  is  chosen 
under  the  name  of  good  and  allowed  to  determine  the  will,  so  that  from 
it  the  highest  principle  of  practice  is  deduced." 

II.  The  rational  idea  of  the  good  determined  by  this  standard  is  the 
idea  of  dignity,  worthiness  or  worth.  This  is  an  ultimate  idea  of  the 
reason  of  the  same  order  with  the  True,  the  Right  and  the  Perfect.  In 
it  is  opened  a  reality  which,  but  for  man's  constitutional  capacity 
of  rational  intuition,  would  have  remained  utterly  inconceivable  and 
unknown. 

The  good,  rationally  estimated,  is  more  than  enjoyment.  It  is  any 
object  which  can  be  acquired,  possessed  and  used,  any  source  of  enjoy- 
ment and  the  enjoyment  resulting,  which  reason  approves  as  worthy  of 
the  pursuit  of  a  rational  being.  Reason  judges  that  the  man  acts 
worthily  of  himself  as  rational  in  seeking  the  object  and  deriving  enjoy- 
ment from  it ;  it  judges  that  the  object  has  dignity  and  worth ;  is 
worthy  to  be  an  object  of  pursuit  and  a  source  of  enjoyment  to  a 
rational  being. 

Necessarily  the  good  of  any  being  must  be  in  harmony  with  the  con- 
stitution of  the  being.  It  cannot  be  for  the  good  of  a  fish  to  be  taken 
out  of  the  water.  Man  is  constituted  rational.  His  good  must  be 
accordant  with  his  rational  constitution.  Among  all  objects  which  may 
be  desired,  possessed  and  enjoyed,  those  only  are  good  which  reason 
declares  worthy  to  be  desired,  possessed  and  enjoyed  by  a  rational 
being.  If  a  man  gains  the  whole  world  at  the  expense  of  his  own 
spiritual  integrity  and  perfection,  the  gain  is  not  worth  the  expenditure ; 
it  is  evil  and  not  good.  When  Raphael  expends  life  putting  the  crea- 
tions of  his  genius  on  the  canvas,  or  Newton  or  Kepler  in  exploring  the 
heavens,  or  Paul  in  building  up  Christian  churches,  reason  approves  of 
the  object  as  having  dignity  and  worth,  and  sees,  as  the  Creator  saw  his 
own  works  in  the  beginning,  that  it  is  good.  But  if  any  man  lives 
selfishly  in  rapacity  and  prodigality,  or  in  rapacity  and  miserliness,  or 
in  fraud  or  violence  using  others  for  his  own  aggrandizement,  or  in 
idleness  and  luxury,  reason  condemns  his  ends,  his  acquisitions,  his 
achievements  and  his  joy  therein,  as  unworthy  of  a  rational  being,  and 
pronounces  it  shameful  that  he  should  spend  his  powers  and  find  his 
enjoyments  in  such  pursuits.  A  reasonable  contempt  for  a  life  of  selfish 
enjoyment  is  uttered  by  Froude,  in  reference  to  a  sentiment  of  some 
political  economists  that  an  idle  and  luxurious  class  is  a  benefit  to 
society  by  stimulating  the  young  to  seek  a  similar  success :  "  They  are 
like  Olympian  gods,  condescending  to  show  themselves  in  their  empy- 
rean and  to  say  to  their  worshipers,  '  Make  money,  money  enough,  and 


268  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

ye  shall  be  as  we  are,  and  shoot  grouse  and  drink  champagne  all  the 
days  of  your  lives.'  "*  And  our  approval  and  condemnation  as  worthy 
or  unworthy  in  such  cases  is  immediate  and  decisive,  and  independent 
of  the  greater  or  less  amount  of  pleasure. 

III.  The  rational  idea  of  the  Good,  as  that  which,  measured  by  the 
standard  of  reason,  has  dignity  and  worth,  presupposes  the  ideas  of  the 
True,  the  Eight  and  the  Perfect.     Each  of  the  four  is  distinct  from  the 
others,  but  there  is  an  order  of  precedence  and  dependence  in  their 
origination.     The  idea  of  the  True  presupposes  no  rational  idea.     Law 
or  right  presupposes  the  idea  of  Truth.    What  is  true  to  reason  is  a  law 
to  action.     The  Perfect  presupposes  the  ideas  of  truth  and  law.     The 
Good  presupposes,  not  only  the  knowledge  in  experience  of  joy  and 
sorrow,  but  also  the  ideas  of  the  true,  the  right  and  the  perfect  as  the 
standard  by  which  we  discriminate  among  joys  and  their  sources  as 
worthy  or  unworthy  of  the  pursuit  of  a  rational  being,  as  having  worth 
or  being  worthless. 

IV.  The  distinction  between  good  and  evil  as  determined  by  reason 
is  eternal  and  immutable,  like  the  distinction  between  the  true  and  the 
absurd,  the  right  and  the  wrong,  the  perfect  and  the  imperfect.    It  must 
be  so  because  the  standard  by  which  it  is  measured  is  so.     Hence  the 
principles,  laws  and  ideals  of  Reason  determine  what  good  is  possible 
in  the  universe.     The  possibility  of  good  contrary  to  these  is  excluded 
by  the  eternal  constitution  of  things ;  that  is,  by  the  fact  that  Reason 
is  supreme  and  the  universe  is  the  expression  of  its  eternal  truths,  laws 
and  ideals.     It  is  impossible  for  any  power,  even  though  almighty,  to 
make  any  acquisition  or  any  pleasure  not  accordant  with  reason  to  be 
good.     Almightiness  can  no  more  make  evil  to  be  good  than  it  can 
make  the  absurd  true  and  real,  the  wrong  right  or  the  imperfect  per. 
feet.     Hence  the  significance  of  the  prophet's  denunciation,  "  Wo  unto 
them  that  call  evil  good  and  good  evil ;  that  put  darkness  for  light  and 
light  for  darkness."   (Isa.  5 :  20.) 

V.  The  Good  being  distinct  from  the  Right,  any  correct  ethical 
philosophy  must  recognize  and  treat  them  as  distinct.    The  confounding 
or  identifying  of  the  Bene  and  the  Recte  has  been  a  common  source  of 
error  in  systems  of  morals.     The  love  which  is  the  fulfilment  of  the  law 
must  comprise  both  righteousness  and  benevolence,  or,  if  both  words  had 
the  Latin  form,  Recte-volence  and  Bene-volence. 

VI.  The  good  thus  rationally  determined,  is  not  merely  a  superior 
good  distinguished  from  the  inferior  good  by  quantity,  but  it  is  the  true 
or  real  good  or  well-being,  distinguished  by  worth  from  all  that  is 
falsely  called  good.    As  the  true  and  real  good  it  is  of  course  the  highest 

*  Inaugural  Address  at  St.  Andrew's,  March  19,  1868. 


FOURTH  ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE  GOOD.          269 

good.  Thus  what  the  highest  good  is,  is  ascertained  not  empirically  by 
measuring  quantity,  but  rationally  by  the  standard  of  reason. 

VII.  Distinguish  worth  as  estimated  by  reason  from  value  in  Political 
Economy.  The  latter  is  measured  by  the  demand  for  the  article  and 
the  labor  of  producing  it.  Whatever  amount  of  labor  the  article  has 
cost,  if  there  is  no  demand  for  it,  it  has  no  value  in  the  market.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  makes  no  difference  as  to  value  in  exchange  whether 
the  demand  for  an  article  is  wise  or  unwise,  right  or  wrong.  An  article 
that  is  positively  injurious,  like  intoxicating  liquors,  may  have  great 
value  in  the  market. 

On  the  other  hand,  worth  as  estimated  by  reason,  is  independent  of  the 
demand  for  it.  It  is  that  which  wisdom  and  love  demand,  but  which 
folly  and  sin  may  refuse.  The  greatest  demand  cannot  impart  worth  to 
what  is  unreasonable  and  wrong.  Nor  does  it  depend  on  the  amount 
of  labor  in  producing  it.  What  proportion  is  there  between  the 
amount  of  labor  in  producing  Homer's  Iliad,  or  Shakespeare's  Hamlet, 
or  Newton's  or  Kepler's  discoveries,  and  their  worth  ?  The  works  of 
the  great  painters  and  sculptors  have  passed  out  of  the  market.  They 
are  preserved  by  princes  and  nations.  No  money  can  buy  them.  So 
wisdom  is  represented  in  the  book  of  Job  as  having  worth  above  all 
price.  "  Man  knoweth  not  the  price  thereof.  It  cannot  be  gotten  for 
gold,  neither  shall  silver  be  weighed  for  the  price  thereof.  It  cannot  be 
valued  with  the  gold  of  Ophir,  with  the  precious  onyx  or  the  sapphire. 
No  mention  shall  be  made  of  coral  or  pearls ;  the  price  of  wisdom  is 
above  rubies."  (Job  28:  12—19.)  The  same  is  the  priceless  worth  of 
God's  redeeming  grace:  "Ye  were  not  redeemed  with  corruptible 
things,  as  silver  and  gold,  but  with  the  precious  blood  of  Christ."  (1  Pet. 
1 :  18.)  It  reveals  a  low  estimate  of  a  man  to  say  he  is  worth  a  million 
of  dollars,  for  it  ranks  him  with  marketable  commodities.  Christ  says 
the  worth  of  a  man  is  more  than  that  of  a  world.  So  simple  a  virtue 
as  integrity  we  acknowledge  to  be  of  priceless  worth,  when  we  say  of 
the  upright  man  that  the  world  does  not  contain  gold  enough  to  buy 
him.  Says  Kant :  "  Everything  in  the  realm  of  ends  has  either  a  price 
or  a  dignity.  That  in  the  place  of  which  an  equivalent  may  be  put,  has 
a  price ;  that  which  is  above  all  price  and  admits  not  substitution  by  an 
equivalent,  has  a  dignity  (TFiirc/e)."* 

It  is  true,  however,  that  the  idea  of  value  arises  and  derives  its  signi- 
ficance from  the  fact  that  man  has  the  idea  of  worth  as  estimated  by 
reason.  A  brute  cannot  traffic.  Hence  political  economy  is  an  attempt 
to  find  a  rational  principle  for  determining  value  in  exchange.  And 
the  principle  that  every  legitimate  transaction  in  business  is  an  ex- 

*  Grundlegung  zur  Metaphysik  der  Sitten,  p.  64. 


270  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

change  of  equivalents  or  of  equivalent  services,  rests  on  the  rational 
ideas  of  justice  and  of  the  reciprocal  relations  and  obligations  of  men 
in  the  community  of  a  moral  system.  And  language  recognizes  the 
reference  to  human  welfare  in  calling  articles  of  exchange  goods. 

VIII.  The  Good  is  the  rational  end  or  object  of  acquisition,  posses- 
sion and  enjoyment.  In  knowing  what  the  good  is,  we  know  the  end 
or  object  approved  by  reason  as  worthy  to  be  acquired,  possessed  and 
enjoyed  by  a  rational  being. 

The  question  "  What  is  the  Good?"  is  not  the  primary  and  funda- 
mental question  of  ethics-  All  knowledge  is  the  knowledge  of  being. 
All  action  has  being  for  its  ultimate  object.  Moral  character  is  pri- 
marily the  choice  of  a  being  or  beings  as  the  supreme  object  of  service ; 
it  is  not  the  choice  of  an  object  to  be  acquired,  possessed  and  enjoyed, 
but  of  a  being  or  beings  to  be  served.  True  ethics  transcends  the 
question  as  to  the  summwn  bonum  or  highest  good,  and  passes  over  into 
an  entirely  different  sphere  of  thought.  The  fundamental  question  of 
ethics  is  not,  "  What  shall  I  get?"  but  it  is,  "  Whom  shall  I  serve?" 

But  when  I  have  chosen  the  being  or  beings  to  whom  I  will  devote 
my  energies  in  service,  the  question  arises,  "  What  service  can  I  ren- 
der ?"  In  answering  this  question  we  are  obliged  to  ascertain  what 
the  good  is ;  what  object  or  end  is  worthy  to  be  acquired,  possessed  and 
enjoyed  by  a  rational  being,  whether  it  is  acquired  for  himself  or  for 
another.  What  object  to  be  acquired,  possessed  and  enjoyed  does 
reason  declare  to  have  true  worth  ? 

The  good  therefore  is  the  rational  end  or  object  of  acquisition,  pos- 
session and  enjoyment.  It  presupposes  the  true,  the  right  and  the 
perfect ;  it  is  that  in  which  they  culminate.  Here  opens  to  our  inves- 
tigation the  sphere  of  rational  ends  of  action.  In  the  sphere  of  the 
good  we  find  those  rational  ends  of  pursuit  which  satisfy  our  highest 
aspirations  and  may  be  put  forward  as  constituting  a  full  and  sufficient 
reason  for  life  itself.  Here  is  the  answer  to  the  question,  forced  on  this 
generation  by  materialistic  denials  of  the  ultimate  realities  of  Reason ; 
"  Is  life  worth  living  ?  "  Reason  answers  that  in  knowing  the  truth, 
obeying  it  as  law,  and  realizing  perfection  man  attains  the  Good,  which 
has  true  and  immutable  worth  and  is  worthy  of  the  pursuit  and  enjoy- 
ment of  rational  beings.  I  shall  sometimes  call  it,  for  short,  the  rational 
end  or  object,  meaning,  not  the  object  of  service,  but  the  object  ap- 
proved by  reason  as  worthy  of  being  acquired,  possessed  and  enjoyed. 
It  is  the  true  and  right  object  of  all  acquisitive  action  on  the  part  of  a 
rational  being. 

It  is  this  reality  known  by  Reason  which  opens  to  knowledge  the 
whole  sphere  of  teleology  or  final  causes.  Reason  asks,  what  is  the  true 
good  of  a  rational  being?  and  judges  all  things  else  in  their  relation  to  that. 


FOURTH  ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE  GOOD.          271 

It  asks,  what  is  it  good  for  ?  of  what  use  is  it  ?    What  rational  end 
does  it  subserve  ? 

§  5O.  In  what  the  Good  or  Well-being  of  a  Rational 
Being  consists. 

Thus  far  my  definition  of  the  good  has  been  analogous  to  my  defini- 
tion of  the  right  by  the  formal  principle  of  the  law.  I  have  said  that 
the  good  is  that  which  is  determined  by  a  rational  standard  as  having 
worth.  But  I  have  not  said  \vhat  it  is  which  has  this  worth.  This  I 
now  proceed  to  define ;  and  the  definition  will  be  analogous  to  the 
definition  of  right  in  the  real  principle  of  the  law.  What  is  it  which 
has  .in  itself  worth  as  estimated  by  reason ;  which  is  everywhere  and 
always  worthy  of  human  acquisition  and  possession,  and  everywhere 
and  always  worthy  to  be  the  source  of  happiness  to  a  rational  being  ? 

I.  The  essential  good  of  a  person  is  the  perfection  of  his  being ;  his 
consequent  harmony  with  himself,  with  God  the  Supreme  Reason,  and 
with  the  constitution  of  the  universe ;  and  the  happiness  necessarily 
resulting. 

1.  The  essential  good  is  primarily  the  perfection  of  the  being. 

Man's  acquisitions  are  not  merely  of  external  goods  to  be  consumed 
for  his  enjoyment  or  used  as  instruments  in  accomplishing  his  ends. 
There  are  also  excellences  constituting  the  perfection  of  his  being, 
which  are  to  be  acquired  by  his  owrn  action.  This  perfection  is  what 
he  must  primarily  seek  to  acquire  as  the  true  good. 

This  is  a  necessary  inference  from  what  has  been  already  established. 
The  Good,  which  is  the  rational  object  of  all  acquisition,  is  itself  the 
realization  of  the  truths,  laws  and  ideals  of  reason.  So  far  as  a  man 
attains  the  perfection  of  his  own  being  he  attains  the  end  which  reason 
declares  to  have  true  worth ;  this  is  the  end  worthy  of  pursuit  and 
acquisition  for  ourselves  and  for  all  beings. 

The  attainment  of  perfection  must  begin  in  the  acquisition  of  right 
moral  character.  Character  begins  in  choice.  When  a  man  chooses 
whom  he  will  serve,  he  acquires  moral  character ;  the  will  is  thence- 
forward a  charactered  will  and  all  action  thereafter  develops,  confirms 
or  modifies  the  character.  The  moral  law  requires  us  to  choose  as  the 
object  of  service  God  as  supreme  and  our  neighbor  equally  with  our- 
selves. This  choice  is  the  essence  and  germ  of  the  love  to  God  and 
man  which  is  the  fulfilment  of  the  law.  It  is  the  essential  germ  of  all 
right  character. 

This  right  choice,  constituting  the  germ  of  all  right  character,  is 
good  in  itself  and  cannot  be  perverted  to  evil  or  made  a  means  of  evil. 
Knowledge,  intellectual  power,  discipline  and  culture,  vigor  of  body, 
all  outward  conditions  and  possessions  may  be  used  for  evil.  The 


272  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

power  of  long  foresight  and  of  self-control  may  be  used  for  evil ;  the 
cool-headed  villain  is  the  most  dangerous  villain.  But  the  right  choice 
cannot  be  perverted  to  evil ;  should  it  be  overpowered  and  fail  to  carry 
out  all  its  purposes,  it  is  still  good  in  itself: 

"  A  noble  aim  faithfully  kept  is  as  a  noble  deed." 

Man  in  his  power  of  choice  can  determine  all  his  energies  and  posses- 
sions to  the  service  of  God  and  man,  and  thus  to  the  realization  of  the 
universal  good ;  or  to  the  service  of  self  and  thus  to  the  realization  of 
evil.  But  the  choice  of  God  and  man  as  the  object  of  service  is  good 
in  itself,  good  without  qualification,  good  which  can  never  be  perverted 
to  evil.  So  Kant  says :  "  There  is  nothing  in  the  world,  and  we  cannot 
conceive  of  anything  out  of  the  world,  which  can  be  held  to  be  good 
without  qualification,  except  a  good  will.  .  .  .  This  good  will  is  good 
not  on  account  of  its  effects  or  its  fitness  to  accomplish  any  given  end,  but 
simply  in  itself,  as  a  right  choice  or  purpose.  It  is  therefore  to  be 
prized  incomparably  higher  for  its  own  sake,  than  anything  which 
comes  to  pass  to  gratify  any  desire  or  even  all  desires  together.  Even 
if  the  good  will  is  unable  to  carry  its  purpose  into  execution,  still  the 
good  will  would  remain,  and  it  would  have  its  worth  in  itself,  like  a 
jewel  which  glitters  with  its  own  luster.  Success  or  failure  neither  adds 
to  nor  takes  from  this  worth.  These  are  like  the  setting  of  the  gem, 
convenient  for  handling  and  setting  it  forth  to  notice,  but  unheeded  by 
the  lapidary  in  estimating  its  real  worth."  * 

Besides  right  moral  character,  the  Good  consists  in  the  perfection  of 
all  the  powers  and  susceptibilities  of  the  being.  It  is  physical,  intellec- 
tual, moral  and  spiritual  perfection.  All  action  in  accordance  with  the 
law  of  love  tends  to  the  development,  discipline  and  culture  of  the  man 
in  the  realization  of  this  perfection. 

And  it  can  be  realized  only  by  action  in  accordance  with  the  law  of 
love.  Should  a  person  propose  to  himself  his  own  perfection  as  the  great 
object  of  acquisition  and  should  he  seek  it  only  for  his  own  aggran- 
dizement and  enjoyment,  he  would  be  serving  himself  supremely,  not 
God  and  his  neighbor ;  he  would  miss  the  perfection  which  he  proposed 
to  attain,  and  instead  of  its  grandeur  and  blessedness  would  find  him- 
self shriveled  in  selfishness,  and  his  whole  sphere  of  interest  and  action, 
the  whole  firmament  and  horizon  of  his  life  shrunk  within  the  bounds 
of  what  he  can  clasp  within  his  own  arms  and  hug  to  his  own  bosom. 
And  here  is  the  significance  of  the  Saviour's  paradox,  "  He  that  findeth 
his  life  shall  lose  it,  and  he  that  loseth  his  life  for  my  sake  shall 
find  it." 

*Grundlegung  zur  Metaphysik  der  Sitten  ;  Erster  Abschnitt,  pp.  11,  12,  13. 


FOURTH  ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE  GOOD.          273 

Goethe  is  a  striking  example  of  a  man  devoting  his  life  to  seeking 
his  own  culture  with  all  the  energy  of  commanding  genius.  Great  as 
are  the  works  of  his  genius,  he  missed  that  which  is  of  highest  worth, 
and  the  light  of  his  intellect  reveals  more  clearly  his  moral  deficiencies. 
Intent  on  personal  culture  and  enjoyment,  he  took  little  interest  in  the 
great  political  movements  of  his  time,  which  were  changing  the  destiny 
of  Europe  and  America  and  affecting  all  the  interests  of  humanity.  In 
Napoleon's  invasion  he  fawned  on  the  conqueror  of  his  people — unlike 
Fichte,  who,  as  the  enemy  approached,  dismissed  his  class  with  the 
inspiriting  words :  "  We  shall  resume  these  lectures  in  a  free  country." 
The  track  of  his  life  was  strewn  with  crushed  and  cast-off  loves,  like 
orange-peels  thrown  away  after  he  had  sucked  out  all  the  sweetness. 
Great  and  lustrous  like  an  iceberg,  floating  deep  and  towering  high, 
moving  majestic  with  the  strength  and  swell  of  the  ocean,  effulgent  in 
the  sunshine,  a  mountain  of  light,  but  also  a  mountain  of  ice.  Plainly 
he  never  attained  the  true  good.  And  this  estimate  of  himself  he 
himself  pronounced,  when  in  his  old  age  he  said :  "  I  have  ever  been 
esteemed  one  of  fortune's  favorites ;  nor  can  I  complain  of  the  course 
my  life  has  taken.  Yet,  truly,  there  has  been  nothing  but  toil  and 
care ;  and  now  in  my  seventy-fifth  year  I  may  say  that  I  have  never 
had  four  weeks  of  genuine  pleasure.  The  stone  was  ever  to  be  rolled 
anew.  My  annals  will  testify  to  the  truth  of  what  I  now  say."  *  Con- 
trast this  with  Paul's  review  of  his  life  of  self-sacrificing  love :  "  I  am 
now  ready  to  be  offered  and  the  time  of  my  departure  is  at  hand :  I 
have  fought  the  good  fight ;  I  have  finished  the  course ;  I  have  kept 
the  faith :  henceforth  there  is  laid  up  for  me  a  crown  of  righteousness, 
which  the  Lord,  the  righteous  judge,  will  give  me  at  that  day." 

There  is  no  absolute  perfection  to  a  finite  being,  but  only  its  perfec- 
tion in  its  own  kind  and  under  its  own  necessary  conditions.  But 
man,  endowed  with  reason  and  free-will,  is  capable  of  progress.  While 
his  moral  character  at  a  given  point  of  time  may  be  right,  he  is  in  cul- 
ture and  capacity  capable  of  continual  growth.  His  perfection,  there- 
fore, is  not  a"  resting  in  any  attainment  as  a  finality.  The  very  fact  of 
resting  in  knowledge  or  power  acquired,  or  in  good  work  done  as  a 
finality  and  satisfying  sufficiency,  would  involve  the  cessation  of  activity, 
and  the  resting  would  be  a  rusting  in  routine,  formalism  and  cant.  The 
perfection  of  man  involves  continual  growth.  It  is  the  condition  of  the 
growing  tree,  the  tree  of  the  Lord,  which  is  full  of  sap,  leafing,  bloom- 
ing, fruiting  and  growing  from  year  to  year,  transforming  the  mold,  the 
air,  the  water  into  its  own  organic  substance,  and  thus  glorifying  itself 
with  beauty  and  majesty  ;  not  a  bark-bound  tree,  standing  fruitless  and 

*  Eckermann  Conversations,  January  27,  1824. 
18 


274  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

unblessed  from  year  to  year.  It  is  the  condition  of  immortal  youth. 
In  becoming  as  a  little  child,  in  order  to  enter  the  kingdom  of  heaven, 
the  Christian  becomes  not  only  simple-minded,  teachable  and  trustful 
as  a  child,  but  also  acquires  the  perpetual  youthfulness  which  we  love 
to  think  of  in  the  immortals,  losing  nothing  of  its  freshness  and  buoy- 
ancy, its  vigor  and  capacity  of  growth  through  the  lapse  of  ages. 

2.  A  person's  Good  consists  in  his  harmony  with  himself,  with  God 
the  Supreme  Reason,  and  with  the  constitution  of  the  universe.     His 
will  is  in  harmony  with  his  Reason,  and  all  his  desires  and  passions 
under  the  power  of  love  are  brought  into  harmony  with  one  another. 
He  is  in  harmony  with  God.     The  universe,  physical  and  spiritual,  is 
the  progressive  expression  or  revelation  of  the  aichetypal  thoughts  of 
God.     As  such  it  must  be  good.     Man  is  not  an  isolated  ego  and  can- 
not work  out  his  own  good  in  independent  individualism.     He  belongs 
to  the  universal  system,  physical  and  spiritual,  and  his  well-being  con- 
sists essentially  in  his  harmony  with  the  system  of  which  he  is  a  part, 
and  with  the  Wisdom  and  Love  which  evermore  are  embodying  them- 
selves in  it.     Its  Cosmic  forces,  acting  on  him  every  moment  for  good 
or  evil,  go  on  evermore  above  his  reach  and  independent  of  his  power. 
But  if  he  reads  aright  the  truths  of  his  own  reason,  he  reads  in  them 
also  the  truths  of  the  supreme  and  universal  reason.     If  he  realizes  the 
perfection  of  his  owTn  being,  he  knows  that  he  is  in  harmony  with  the 
constitution  of  the  moral  and  physical  system  and  with  the  thought 
and  design  of  the  Supreme  Reason  energizing  in  it  evermore  for  good. 
While,  then,  his  own  perfection  constitutes  primarily  his  good  or  well- 
being,  it  has  this  scope  that  it  puts  him  in  harmony  with  the  constitu- 
tion of  the  universe  and  with  the  wisdom  and  love  and  power  ever 
energizing  in  It ;  and  thus  makes  it  sure  that  all  the  complicated  and 
immeasurable  agencies  of  the  worlds  of  nature  and  of  spirit  will  bring 
him  blessing.     "All   things  work  together   for   good   to  them   who 
love  God." 

3.  A  third  essential  constituent  of  good  or  well-being  is  the  happiness 
flowing  from  the  perfection  of  the  person  and  from  his.  Harmony  with 
himself,  with  God  and  with  the  constitution  of  things. 

It  may  be  objected  that  since  happiness  may  arise  from  evil  and  be  a 
motive  to  evil,  it  cannot  belong  of  itself  to  the  essential  good.  This  is 
true.  On  the  other  hand,  sorrow  that  comes  necessarily  from  evil,  may 
be  a  motive  to  forsake  it.  Such  sorrows,  for  example,  are  remorse,  the 
misery  of  self-conflict,  the  dissatisfaction  with  worldly  acquisitions.  The 
sorrow  of  repentance  is  good,  although  it  could  not  have  existed  if  the 
penitent  had  never  sinned. 

But  happiness  has  no  existence  of  itself  and  is  always  inseparable 
from  its  source  in  something  else.  The  happiness  which  comes  from 


FOURTH  ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF   REASON:    THE  GOOD.         275 

perfection  is  a  constitutional  and  necessary  issue  of  the  perfection  and 
inseparable  from  it.  It  is  good  in  its  source,  and  in  all  its  influence  as 
motive ;  for  joy  which  springs  from  right  character  and  action  can  be 
motive  only  to  perpetuate  and  intensify  them.  Hence  this  joy,  as 
inseparable  from  right  character,  is  good  and  cannot  be  perverted  to 
evil.  It  is  inseparable  from  the  perfection ;  if  the  supposed  perfection 
issues  in  misery  or  even  in  insensibility,  it  is  thus  proved  not  to  be 
perfection. 

Capacity  for  enjoyment  is  a  part  of  man's  constitution.  As  he  makes 
progress  towards  perfection  this  capacity  cannot  be  diminished  or 
destroyed,  but  must  be  itself  progressively  perfected.  Incapacity  for 
enjoyment  is  itself  an  imperfection.  A  man  thus  incapacitated  would 
be  as  far  from  perfection  as  from  good.  In  the  experience  of  enjoyment 
the  idea  of  good  originates.  The  rational  estimate  in  which  the  idea  of 
worth  arises  is  itself  an  estimate  of  objects  which,  as  desired  or  chosen, 
are  sources  of  enjoyment,  and  between  wrhich  the  reason  judges  which 
are  worthy  and  which  unworthy.  Enjoyment,  therefore,  is  an  essential 
constituent  in  good  or  well-being.  The  rational  idea  of  worth  and  the 
empirical  element  of  enjoyment  are  inseparable  in  the  idea  of  the  good. 
The  good  is  that  which  is  a  source  of  enjoyment  and  at  the  same  time 
has  worth ;  that  is,  in  the  estimate  of  reason  it  is  worthy  to  be  the  source 
of  a  rational  person's  happiness.  The  good  is  the  perfection  and  har- 
mony of  the  rational  being,  and  the  happiness  indissolubly  united 
with  it. 

Besides,  since  the  sources  of  happiness  depend  on  the  subjective  state 
of  the  man,  when  the  man  is  perfect,  the  enjoyment  wThich  is  peculiar  to 
his  perfection  must  flow  from  it  spontaneously  and  necessarily.  As  a 
miser  spontaneously  and  necessarily  enjoys  hoarding,  one  who  loves  his 
neighbor  as  himself  must  enjoy  beneficence,  and  one  who  loves  truth 
must  enjoy  discovering  it.  The  same  is  true  of  all  perfection ;  the 
happiness  peculiar  to  it  is  as  inseparable  from  it  as  brightness  is  from 
sunshine.  Joys  from  other  sources  may  cease ;  pain  and  sorrow  from 
other  sources  may  be  suffered ;  but  the  joy  peculiar  to  perfection  flows 
from  it  spontaneously  and  necessarily;  no  circumstances  alter  it,  no 
outward  conditions  check  it ;  it  remains  always  unchanged.  This  may 
be  exemplified  in  the  enjoyment  of  health,  which  is  the  perfect  condi- 
tion of  the  body.  The  healthy  man  may  be  poor,  or  despised,  or 
rich,  or  honored  ;  he  may  be  ignorant  or  learned,  malevolent  or  benevo- 
lent ;  but  the  freshness,  the  elasticity,  the  courage,  the  energy  of  perfect 
health,  and  all  the  glow  and  joy  incident  to  it  remain  the  same.  The 
same  is  true  of  the  joy  of  intellectual  culture,  of  aesthetic  taste,  of  moral 
excellence,  and  of  religious  faith  and  love.  The  man  may  encounter 
adversity  in  a  thousand  forms,  but  the  joy  peculiar  to  these  high  quali- 


276  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

ties  flows  spontaneously  and  necessarily  without  stint.  In  fact  the 
privation  of  joys  from  other  sources  seems  often  to  enhance  these  higher 
joys.  Paul  awaiting  death  in  the  Mamertine  or  some  other  Roman 
dungeon  utters  the  grandest  of  all  his  expressions  of  Christian  exulta- 
tion. The  man  who  hungers  and  thirsts  after  righteousness  is  blessed 
in  the  righteousness.  This  it  is,  his  own  righteousness,  his  own  love  to 
God  and  man,  which  is  "  in  him  a  well  of  water  springing  up  unto 
eternal  life."  This  is  the  significance  of  our  Saviour's  words, 
"  Whosoever  drinketh  of  the  water  that  I  shall  give  him,  shall  never 
thirst." 

4.  These  three  essential  constituents  of  the  Good  are  distinguishable 
in  thought,  but  inseparable  in  fact.     No  one  of  the  three  exists  without 
the  others ;  the  existence  of  one  implies  the  existence  of  the  others.    In 
the  perfection  of  his  being  a  person  is  necessarily  in  harmony  with  the 
wisdom  and  love  of  God,  and  with  the  constitution  of  the  universe, 
spiritual  and  physical,  which  is  the  ever-progressive  expression  of  that 
wisdom  and  love.    And  this  perfection  and  harmony  spontaneously  and 
necessarily  glow  with  their  own  peculiar  joy,  and  thus  constitute  the 
blessedness  of  the  righteous.    This  is  the  Good  ;  it  is  one  and  not  three ; 
it  is  three  in  one.     It  is  good  in  itself;  good  in  the  sources  of  its  joy  ; 
good  in  all  its  outcome  and  tendencies. 

This  is  exemplified  in  moral  character.  Moral  perfection  is  perfect 
love.  In  the  life  of  love  the  moral  perfection  of  the  individual  and  the 
harmony  of  his  personal  character  with  the  universal  moral  system  are 
united.  This  love  beams  with  its  own  inextinguishable  joy — joy  which 
is  no  more  to  be  destroyed  by  sufferings  inflicted  by  wicked  men  or  any 
evils  of  outward  origin  than  the  light  of  the  stars  is  blown  out  by 
earthly  storms.  So  Jesus  says :  "  And  your  joy  no  one  taketh  away 
from  you." 

5.  Hence  any  theory  which,  like  that  of  the  Stoics,  excludes  happi- 
ness from  the  essence  of  well-being  or  the  Good,  excludes  one  of  the 
two  elements  essential  to  the  distinctive  significance  of  the  idea- 
Stoicism,  excluding  happiness,  the  element  of  the  Good  empirically 

known,  contradicts  common  sense  and  sets  itself  in  antagonism  to 
human  nature.  It  aims  to  extirpate  man's  nature,  not  to  regulate  it. 
It  sets  forth  virtue  as  a  bald  purpose  to  obey  rational  law,  defecated 
from  all  feeling.  Hence  has  arisen  the  error  that  virtue  is  greater  in 
proportion  to  the  reluctance  of  feeling  which  it  overcomes ;  that  the 
enjoyment  of  doing  duty  vitiates  the  virtue  of  doing  it.  This  is  exem- 
plified in  the  lady  who  said  to  Herbert  Spencer,  concerning  an  acquaint- 
ance, "  I  really  think  she  does  things  becausa  she  likes  to  do  them," 
.  .  .  .  "  the  form  of  expression  and  the  manner  both  implying  the 
belief  not  only  that  such  behavior  is  wrong,  but  also  that  every  one 


FOURTH  ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE  GOOD.          277 

must  recognize  it  as  wrong."  *     The  same  is  ridiculed  in  Schiller's 
Scruple  of  Conscience  and  its  Answer : 

"  The  friends  whom  I  love  I  gladly  would  serve, 

But  to  this  inclination  excites  me : 
And  so  I  am  forced  from  virtue  to  swerve, 
Since  my  act,  through  affection,  delights  me. 

"  The  friends  whom  thou  lovest  thou  must  first  seek  to  scorn, 

For  to  no  other  way  can  I  guide  thee  : 
'Tis  alone  with  disgust  thou  canst  rightly  perform 
The  acts  to  which  duty  would  lead  thee." 

And  it  is  only  against  this  type  of  philosophy  that  the  strongest 
arguments  for  Hedonism  have  force.  Thus  Bentham,  in  his  coarse 
style,  says :  "  The  summum  bonum,  the  sovereign  good — what  is  it  ?  It 
is  this  thing,  it  is  that  thing,  and  the  other  thing ;  it  is  anything  but 
pleasure;  it  is  the  Irishman's  apple-pie  made  of  nothing  but  quinces." 
"  Another  set  cry  out :  '  The  habit  of  virtue  is  the  summum  bonum.'  .  .  . 
Lie  all  your  life  long  in  bed,  with  the  rheumatism  in  your  loins,  the 
stone  in  your  bladder,  and  the  gout  in  your  feet : — have  but  the  habit 
of  virtue  and  you  have  the  summum  bonum.  Much  good  may  it 
do  you."  f 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Hedonists  exclude  from  the  good,  worth  or 
worthiness,  the  other  of  the  two  elements  essential  to  its  distinctive  sig- 
nificance. The  Stoic  excludes  happiness,  the  element  given  empirically 
in  experience,  and  proposes  the  impossible  virtue  of  a  passionless  Rea- 
son, doing  duty  in  stern  apathy.  The  Hedonist  excludes  worth  or 
worthiness,  the  rational  element  given  by  reason,  and  turns  the  man  out 
to  seek  pleasure  of  whatever  kind,  sending  him  into  the  fields  to  feed 
with  the  swine. 

Christian  ethics  recognizes  both  elements  in  their  true  relation  and 
unity ;  it  welcomes  the  man  with  joy  as  a  son  of  God  to  the  love  and 
purity  and  blessedness  of  his  father's  house. 

II.  Whatever  circumstances,  conditions  or  possessions  contribute  to 
the  essential  good  already  defined,  are  relative  good.  Such  are  food, 
raiment,  houses,  lands,  machinery,  tools,  positions  of  honor  and  authority, 
and  the  like.  These  are  useful.  But  utility  determines  nothing  as  to 
the  good ;  for  things  may  be  useful  for  evil  as  well  as  for  good.  They 
are  good  relatively,  that  is,  when  they  contribute  to  the  essential  good. 
Our  Lord  recognizes  them  as  relatively  good :  "  Your  heavenly  Father 
knoweth  that  ye  have  need  of  all  these  things."  The  common  sin  of 
man  is  setting  the  heart  on  the  relative  good  and  forgetting  the  essen- 
tial. But  it  is  no  good  except  as  related  to  the  essential  good ;  and  so 

*  Data  of  Ethics,  p.  Ill,  chap,  vij.,  §  43.  t  Deontology,  chap.  iii. 


278  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

many  a  worldling  by  sorrowful  experience  has  found  it.  When  these 
things  cease  to  subserve  the  higher  end  they  cease  to  be  good  and  may 
be  cheerfully  given  up. 

III.  The  essential  evil  is  the  contrary  of  the  good.  It  must  be  the 
distemper,  perversion  and  vitiation  of  the  being  ;  the  discord  or  conflict 
of  the  man  with  himself,  with  God  and  with  the  rational  constitution 
of  the  universe  ;  and  the  unhappinesa  resulting.  As  the  perfection  of 
the  being  begins  with  right  moral  character,  so  the  vitiation  of  the  being 
begins  with  wrong  moral  character.  As  right  character  is  primarily 
and  essentially  love  to  God  and  man,  so  the  wrong  character  is  prima- 
rily and  essentially  selfishness,  or  the  choice  of  self  as  the  supreme  object 
of  service. 

Then  we  properly  say  that  sin  is  the  essential  evil,  evil  without  quali- 
fication, evil  which  can  under  no  circumstances  be  good  or  the  means 
of  good.  It  is  evil  and  only  evil  continually.  As  a  man  continues  to 
act  in  sin  he  corrupts  and  disorders  his  being,  and  comes  into  conflict 
with  himself,  with  God  and  with  the  constitution  of  things. 

All  outward  conditions,  circumstances  and  possessions,  all  powers, 
knowledge,  discipline  and  culture  of  the  man,  when  used  for  evil  ends 
become  relatively  evil.  Hence  it  is  of  the  essence  of  sin  to  change 
what  otherwise  would  be  good -into  evil  as  related  to  the  sinner,  over- 
coming good  with  evil ;  so  that  the  law  and  grace  of  God,  being  resisted 
and  abused,  are  transformed  for  the  sinner  from  good  to  evil,  from  a 
blessing  to  a  curse.  All  things  work  for  evil  to  him.  And,  further, 
what  is  evil  the  sinner  chooses  as  good.  He  chooses  it  as  good  because 
it  gratifies  his  evil  desires  ;  but  it  is  to  him  as  a  wrorm  that  never  dies  and 
a  fire  that  is  not  quenched.  He  loses  himself  and  is  cast  away,  missing 
all  the  legitimate  ends  for  which  a  rational  being  should  exist. 

The  existence  of  sinners  implies  the  existence  of  a  society  or  kingdom 
of  wickedness,  recognized  in  the  Bible  as  the  kingdom  of  Satan  or  the 
power  of  darkness.  This  kingdom  is  in  direct  antagonism  to  the  king- 
dom of  God,  and  the  kingdom  of  God  is  in  antagonism  to  it.  It  is  the 
antagonism  of  love  and  selfishness.  This  power  of  evil  confronts  and 
opposes  the  man  who  in  the  life  of  love  is  trying  to  attain  good  for 
himself  and  all  mankind.  From  it  come  on  him  temptation  to  sin, 
power  of  delusion  and  deceit,  hindrance  and  often  frustration  of  his 
beneficent  plans,  and  sometimes  violence  despoiling  him  of  his  posses- 
sions and  inflicting  on  him  torture,  imprisonment  or  death.  This  power 
of  evil  does  not  belong  to  the  constitution  of  things,  except  so  far  as  the 
existence  of  finite  free  agents  belongs  to  the  constitution  of  things.  It 
comes  into  being,  not  by  the  act  of  God,  but  by  the  action  of  free  agents 
sinning  against  God,  by  their  own  choice  putting  themselves  in  antago- 
nism to  the  truth  and  law,  the  wisdom  and  love  of  God,  and  by  their 


FOURTH  ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE  GOOD.  279 

selfish  characters  and  action  doing  what  in  them  lies  to  hinder  the 
universal  good,  to  frustrate  all  efforts  to  promote  it,  and  so  to 
multiply  evil. 

Right  character  does  not  bring  man  into  harmony  with  these  powers 
of  evil,  but  into  antagonism  to  them.  Their  opposition  may  retard  the 
progress  of  truth,  righteousness  and  good-will ;  but  it  cannot  diminish 
the  good  realized  by  the  man  himself  who  faithfully  serves  God  in  the 
face  of  all  injury.  His  very  fidelity  strengthens  his  right  character, 
helps  to  develop  his  being  to  its  perfection,  and  multiplies  the  blessings 
which  come  on  him  from  God's  grace. 

Apparently  there  is  also  evil  which  comes  on  man  from  the  course 
of  nature.  The  miasma  which  moves  undetected  by  any  sense,  "  the 
pestilence  that  walketh  in  darkness,"  tornadoes,  drought  and  floods, 
untimely  heat  and  cold,  cosmic  influences  of  many  kinds  bring  evil 
which  comes  alike  on  the  righteous  and  the  wicked  and  which  no  skill 
of  man  is  at  present  able  to  avert.  Certainly  the  kingdom  of  nature 
does  not  yet  seem  to  be  in  harmony  with  God's  kingdom  of  grace.  Here 
again  it  is  true  that  cosmic  agencies,  however  irresistible,  have  no  power 
to  harm  the  righteous  man  himself,  but  only  help  on  his  development, 
discipline  him  to  wisdom  and  strength,  and  so  aid  him  in  realizing  the 
true  good.  Yet  we  may  reasonably  expect  that  a  more  immediate  har- 
mony of  cosmic  agencies  with  beneficent  spiritual  influences  will  be 
realized.  Man  is  appointed  to  be  the  lord  of  nature,  and  by  his  pro- 
gress in  knowledge  and  power  he  is  subduing  and  civilizing  the  savage 
earth,  learning  the  laws  of  cosmic  forces,  and  acquiring  skill  to  protect 
himself  from  their  pernicious  effects  and  even  to  control  them  and 
subject  them  to  his  service.  And  we  know  not  to  what  extent  this 
civilization  and  subjection  of  nature  may  be  carried  or  whether  there 
will  be  any  limit  to  its  progress.  Nor  do  we  know  what  cosmic  changes 
await  the  universe  in  the  future.  The  Bible,  however,  clearly  inti- 
mates, in  its  glimpses  of  the  new  heaven  and  the  new  earth  wherein 
dwelleth  righteousness,  a  future  harmony  between  the  kingdom  of  nature 
and  the  kingdom  of  grace. 

IV.  A  man's  good  is  put  in  his  own  power.  The  essential  good  and 
the  essential  evil  are  primarily  within  the  man  and  dependent  on  his 
own  choice  and  action.  And  this  determines  whether  the  action  of  out- 
ward agencies  on  him  will  be  beneficent  or  hurtful.  If  his  character  is 
right,  then  he  will  so  meet  all  outward  influences  as  to  advance  his  dis- 
cipline, culture  and  education,  and  the  development  of  his  being  to  its 
perfection  and  the  realization  of  good.  If  he  persists  in  a  wrong  char- 
acter and  action,  all  outward  agencies  in  like  manner  accelerate  the 
perversion  of  his  being  and  the  realization  of  evil.  It  is  so  in  nature. 
The  sunshine,  as  it  issues  from  the  sun,  is  full  of  blessing.  But  whether 


280  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

it  brings  good  or  evil  depends  on  the  receptivity  of  that  on  which  it 
falls.  When  it  falls  on  cultivated  ground  full  of  good  seeds  it  quickens 
it  into  fruitfulness  and  beauty ;  when  it  falls  on  a  malarial  swamp  it 
quickens  it  to  pestilence  and  death ;  when  it  falls  on  the  barren  sands 
of  Sahara  they  only  glow  in  their  barrenness  with  a  fiercer  heat.  God 
is  the  eternal  fullness  of  wisdom  and  love  overflowing  with  good  into 
the  universe,  pouring  through  all  his  works  of  nature  and  providence, 
of  law  and  grace,  and  free  to  every  one  who  comes  into  harmony  with 
the  wisdom  and  the  love  and  so  becomes  capable  of  receiving  the  ever- 
flowing  good.  A  man's  own  free  choice  is  the  key  which  opens  the 
flood-gates  and  lets  the  divine  goodness  pour  through  his  life  and  flood 
it  with  blessing. 

God  himself  is  eternally  blessed  in  the  perfection  of  his  own  being ; 
and  he  expresses  his  wisdom  and  love  in  finite  things.  Man,  by  coming 
into  harmony  with  God  and  with  the  divine  wisdom  and  love  which  are 
expressed  in  the  universe  and  are  the  constitution  01  things,  becomes  a 
participator  in  the  true  good.  He  is  blessed  in  himself  and  receives 
blessing  from  God  and  from  all  that  exists.  He  is  not  the  creator  or 
originator  of  good,  but  the  participator  in  the  good  that  is  eternal.  He 
has  the  peace  of  God  which  passeth  all  understanding ;  blessedness  in 
himself,  in  God  and  all  God's  works,  like  the  blessedness  of  God  him- 
self— that  blessedness  which  is  peculiar  to  rational  persons  in  the  per- 
fection of  their  being,  in  the  rightness  of  all  their  doings,  and  their 
harmony  with  eternal  wisdom  and  love.  Evil,  on  the  contrary,  is  not 
eternal ;  it  is  created  or  originated  by  finite  rational  beings ;  it  is  sub- 
jective, personal  and  local ;  it  is  contingent  on  the  action  of  finite  wills, 
and  so  dependent  for  its  existence  on  individual  sinners ;  and  in  the 
entire  moral  system  sporadic  and  exceptional. 

Here  is  an  additional  evidence  that  happiness  alone  is  not  "our 
being's  end  and  aim."  For  if  so,  the  end  would  have  been  more  surely 
attained  if  man  had  been  left  to  the  guidance  of  instinct  only ;  for  this 
guidance,  so  far  as  it  reaches,  is  unerring.  The  fact  that  man  is 
endowed  with  reason  and  free-will  is  proof  that  he  exists  for  some 
higher  end  than  pleasure.  In  the  light  of  reason  he  must  with  careful 
consideration  compare  the  sources  of  enjoyment  and  estimate  their 
worth;  and  by  rejecting  this 'and  choosing  that,  by  resisting  and  regu- 
lating his  impulses,  by  substituting  for  the  eyil  which  he  desires  the 
good  which  reason  estimates  to  have  worth,  by  overcoming  evil  with 
good,  he  is  to  cultivate  and  develop  himself,  and  in  his  own  perfection 
attain  his  true  good  and  at  the  same  time  accomplish  his  true  work  of 
love  to  others. 

A  rational  being  is  always  to  be  served,  never  to  be  acquired,  pos- 
sessed and  used.  He  is  always  an  end,  never  an  instrument  or  tool. 


FOURTH   ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE  GOOD.          281 

This  is  accordant  with  the  dignity  of  a  rational  being ;  by  realizing  his 
own  ideals  he  finds  his  true  good,  and  finds  it  within  himself.  Hence 
it  is  involved  in  his  personality  that  he  is  an  end  and  not  a  means,  a 
person  to  be  served,  not  a  thing  to  be  used.  Hence  he  is  never  to  be 
possessed  and  used  by  others  for  their  ends,  but  to  be  helped  by  them 
in  a  service  of  righteousness  and  benevolence  in  accomplishing  his  per- 
fection and  well-being.  Even  Society  in  its  organic  capacity  may  not 
use  him  for  its  own  ends,  but,  while  commanding  his  free  and  intelli- 
gent service,  must  itself  seek  his  good  in  rendering  to  him  the  service 
of  righteousness  and  good-will.  For  government  is  "  a  minister  of  God 
for  good "  to  the  governed ;  and  the  well-being  of  society  can  be 
advanced  only  in  proportion  as  the  individuals  composing  it  attain 
their  own  well-being  in  their  own  personal  perfection. 

This  general  conception  of  the  good  is  presented  with  poetic  beauty 
in  the  first  Psalm.  The  blessedness  of  man  is  found  within  himself;  it 
is  the  perfection  of  his  being  and  the  right  doing  of  his  work ;  it  is 
what  he  is  and  does  rather  than  what  he  gets.  Such  a  man  is  like  a 
tree  planted  by  the  rivers  of  water.  It  is  immaterial  to  the  growth  of  a 
tree  whether  it  stand  in  the  garden  of  a  hut  or  a  palace.  Of  all  that  is 
put  on  the  ground  around  it  only  that  is  of  service  which  it  can  take  up 
into  itself  and  organize  into  its  own  substance.  £x)  all  that  is  external 
contributes  to  the  good  of  a  man  only  so  far  as  it  contributes  to  his 
growth  and  fruitfulness ;  only  so  far  as  he  takes  it  up  into  himself  and 
makes  it  help  his  own  development  and  give  scope  and  efficiency  to  his 
work  of  love.  The  Psalm  represents  the  tree  as  in  a  garden,  watered 
by  artificial  canals.  So  man's  blessedness  does  not  grow  wild ;  it  is  the 
result  of  painstaking  culture,  appropriating  God's  sufficient  grace,  the 
ever  full  and"  flowing  river  of  water  of  life. 

\  51.    Merit  and  Demerit. 

I.  When  a  man  chooses  and  acts  in  accordance  with  the  truths,  laws 
and  ideals  of  reason,  we  know  by  an  intuition  of  reason  that  he  is 
worthy  to  have  the  true  good.  In  this  course  of  action  and  in  seeking 
these  ends  reason  judges  him  worthy  of  the  approval  of  himself  and  of 
all  rational  beings ;  worthy  of  the  favor  of  God ;  worthy  of  all  the  good 
which  the  universe  can  give  him ;  worthy  to  be  "  heir  of  all  things." 
And  this  is  true  of  every  rational  being  thus  living ;  for  by  virtue  of 
his  personality  he  has  his  end  and  his  good  in  himself;  all  beings  are  to 
minister  to  him  in  securing  that  end  and  good  ;  and  when  through  the 
man  Christ  Jesus  he  is  lifted  from  condemnation  and  sin  and  brought 
to  put  himself  by  his  own  free  determination  into  harmony  with  God 
and  the  constitution  of  things,  then  in  very  deed  he  becomes  with  Christ 
"  heir  of  all  things,"  "  heir  of  God  and  joint  heir  with  Christ ; "  then  he 


282  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

"  reigns  with  Christ,"  who,  by  lifting  him  out  of  his  sins  into  harmony 
with  God,  has  in  very  deed  "put  all  things  in  subjection  under  his 
feet,"  has  made  the  "  angels  minister  to  him  as  heir  of  salvation  "  and 
"  all  things  work  together  for  his  good."  Every  rational  being  who  is 
in  harmony  with  God,  the  supreme  Reason,  is  entitled  by  the  preroga- 
tive of  reason  to  use  all  irrational  things  and  to  receive  the  willing  ser- 
vice of  all  rational  beings  in  attaining  his  own  perfection  and  good. 

If,  on  the  contrary,  a  man  is  living  in  antagonism  to  the  truths,  laws 
and  ideals  of  reason,  reason  pronounces  him  unworthy  of  the  good, 
worthy  only  of  the  evil. 

The  worthiness  of  good,  thus  adjudged  by  reason,  is  called  merit  and 
the  unworthiness  of  good  is  called  demerit.  The  word  desert  is  common 
to  both ;  as  one  deserves  well  or  ill.  Merit  is  sometimes  used  to  denote 
the  desert  of  evil ;  as  we  say,  a  criminal  merits  his  punishment.  The 
noun  merit,  however,  is  commonly  used  to  denote  the  desert  of  good. 

II.  We  necessarily  believe  that  whoever  chooses  and  acts  in  accord- 
ance with  the  truths,  laws  and  ideals  of  reason  will  certainly  attain  the 
true  good ;  he  will  not  merely  merit  it,  but  will  attain  it.  Every  one 
who  seeks  will  find. 

1.  This  is  involved  in  the  fact  that  reason  is  supreme  in  the  universe. 
Under  the  benign  government  of  perfect  reason  ordering  the  universe 
in  wisdom  and  love,  every  one  whose  ends  and  acts  are  accordant  with 
reason  must  be  blessed.  If  the  universe  is  so  constituted  and  governed 
that  character  and  action  perfectly  wise  and  right  may  issue-  in  evil,  and 
character  and  action  altogether  unwise  and  wrong  may  issue  in  good,  it 
would  contradict  our  deepest  moral  convictions,  subvert  all  moral  law 
and  confound  all  moral  distinctions ;  the  principles,  laws  and  ideals  of 
reason  would  have  no  reality,  and  the  universe  would  be  founded  in 
unreason.  If  we  trust  reason  at  all,  we  must  trust  it  as  supreme.  So 
trusting,  we  must  believe  that  he  who  seeks  ends  which  reason  estimates 
as  having  true  worth,  will  find  the  true  and  highest  good.  This  is  the 
rational  optimism. 

But,  further,  action  in  harmony  with  reason  realizes  the  true  good, 
because  it  insures  perfection  of  the  being  and  the  harmony  of  the  being 
with  the  constitution  of  things,  and  because  the  happiness  peculiar  to 
these  issues  spontaneously ;  and  these  constitute  the  essential  good. 

And  thus  all  external  conditions  are  made  into  relative  good.  If  a 
man  experiences  pain,  loss,  disappointment,  persecution,  death,  whatever 
evils  may  assail  a  man  from  without,  by  meeting  them  in  wisdom  and 
love  he  develops  himself  towards  perfection,  and  so  transforms  the  evil 
into  good.  Scientific  lecturers  picture  an  immense  cylinder  of  ice  mov- 
ing with  great  velocity  into  the  sun,  and  tell  us  that  it  would  instantly 
be  not  only  melted  but  burned,  contributing  to  increase  the  heat  and 


FOURTH  ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE  GOOD.          283 

• 

brightness  of  the  sun.  So  all  evils  make  the  man,  whose  life  is 
in  harmony  with  reason,  wiser,  purer  and  stronger,  and  so  promote 
his  good. 

2.  Thus,  even  in  this  life,  every  right  act  receives  immediately  and 
invariably  its  reward  in  securing  to  the  agent  his  good  or  true  well- 
being,   and   every   wrong   act  its   punishment    by   bringing    on    the 
agent  evil. 

3.  The  objection  that  the  world  is  not  governed  by  a  righteous  God, 
because  good  and  evil  are  distributed  with  no  regard  to  character,  is 
founded  only  on  a  false  conception  of  what  the  good  is.     It  is  wealth, 
and  honor  among  men,  and  the  like  which  are  distributed  without 
regard  to  character.     But  God  is  poor  indeed  if  he  has  no  good  higher 
and  more  essentially  good  than  these. 

"  Wealth  on  the  vilest  often  is  bestowed 
To  show  its  vileness  in  the  sight  of  God." 

God  rewards  his  servants  with  the  durable  riches  of  righteousness.  He 
forms  them  into  his  own  likeness ;  quickens  them  to  love  and  serve  like 
Christ,  and  thus  makes  them  capable  of  godlike  joys  and  the  blessedness 
of  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  That  kingdom  he  that  is  not  born  of  God 
into  the  life  of  love  cannot  enter,  cannot  enjoy,  and,  for  so  our  Lord 
says,  cannot  even  see. 

4.  The   true   good   as  estimated   by   reason   is   the  highest  good. 
Although   it  is   impossible  empirically  to  determine  what  course  of 
action  will  yield  the  greatest   intensity,  continuity  and  duration  of 
enjoyment,  yet  we  can  determine  it  by  the  rational  standard.     Who- 
ever follows  implicitly  the  guidance  of  reason  and  conscience  knows 
that  he  is  insuring  his  own  highest  good,  even  when  for  the  time  being 
his  action  subjects  him  to  privation  and  suffering.     This  is  evident  from 
the  whole  course  of  the  foregoing  discussion. 

£  52.    The  Feelings  Pertaining  to  the  Idea  of  the  Good. 

I.  The  feelings  pertaining  to  the  rational  idea  of  the  Good  presup- 
pose the  idea.     I  am  not  speaking  of  enjoyment,  which  belongs  also 
with  the  natural  emotions ;  but  of  feelings  pertaining  to  the  rational 
idea  distinctively.     We  do  not  derive  the  rational  idea  of  worth  from 
our  feelings,  but  the  feelings  presuppose  the  idea  and  are  occasioned  by 
it.    This  is  analogous  to  the  relation  of  the  feelings  to  the  other  rational 
ideas,  and  needs  only  to  be  mentioned. 

II.  There  are  two  subdivisions  of  this  class  of  feelings. 

First,  the  motives  and  emotions  of  self-respect,  the  sentiments  of 
worthiness  and  un worthiness,  of  the  noble  and  the  ignoble,  of  honor  and 


284  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

• 

shame,  the  feeling  of  conscious  dignity.  Such  feelings  appear  in  scorn 
of  all  that  is  base  and  mean,  in  sensitiveness  to  honor,  in  aspiration  for 
all  that  is  noble.  Paul  gloried  in  the  reproach  and  cross  of  Christ, 
esteeming  it  honorable  to  suffer  for  the  truth. 

A  second  subdivision  consists  of  prudential  motives  and  emotions. 
Man  is  so  constituted  that  he  desires  happiness  rather  than  misery,  well- 
being  rather  than  its  contrary,  these  being  the  only  objects  compared. 
When  in  the  light  of  reason  he  sees  what  his  welfare  truly  consists  in, 
his  conviction  that  it  is  the  true  good  will  lead  him  to  wish  for  it,  even 
though,  taking  all  that  interests  and  attracts  him  into  the  account,  he 
does  not  choose  it.  This  prudence  is  a  motive  to  which  appeal  may 
always  be  made  even  in  the  most  sinful  man,  inducing  him  to  seek  his 
true  good. 

This  class  of  feelings  is  often  called  self-love ;  self-respect,  the  feeling 
belonging  to  the  first  subdivision,  is  the  man's  interest  in  his  own  dig- 
nity and  honor  and  pertains  to  worth,  the  rational  element  of  the  good. 
Prudence,  which  constitutes  the  second  subdivision,  is  the  interest  which 
a  man  takes  in  his  own  happiness  in  the  whole  of  his  being.  It  per- 
tains to  the  empirical  element  of  the  good.  The  two  are  manifestations 
of  self-love. 

\  53.    Practical  Importance  in  the  Conduct  of  Life. 

A  correct  knowledge  of  the  good  is  essential  to  the  right  education 
and  progress  both  of  the  individual  and  of  society.  Man  may  forego 
the  gratification  of  a  present  desire  because  it  is  at  the  moment  over- 
powered by  a  stronger.  But  if  this  is  all,  he  is  living  the  life  of  im- 
pulse, which  is  the  life  of  a  brute.  In  early  infancy  little  higher  than 
this  appears ;  and  the  same  reign  of  impulse  is  a  prominent  character- 
istic of  savages.  Manhood  reveals  itself  and  begins  its  true  develop- 
ment only  when  man  begins  to  control  his  desires  by  reason ;  only  when 
from  the  darkness  and  mystery  of  his  being  the  man  emerges  in  the 
majesty  of  reason  upon  the  dark  and  stormy  waves  of  passion,  like  Jesus 
walking  on  the  sea,  and  commands  obedience.  Progress  both  of  the 
individual  and  of  society  begins  in  learning  with  intelligent  forethought 
to  forego  the  gratification  of  present  impulse  for  future  welfare.  But 
if  the  forethought  has  regard  only  to  degree  of  enjoyment,  no  real  im- 
provement is  insured  ;  for  the  sources  of  enjoyment  are  determined  by 
the  subjective  state  of  the  man.  If  the  sources  of  his  enjoyment  are 
earthly,  sensual,  devilish,  his  quest  of  greater  pleasure  will  only 
strengthen  his  existing  preferences ;  his  discoveries  and  inventions  wrill 
only  give  new  skill  and  power  in  seeking  the  same  sordid  ends,  will 
develop  skill  and  power,  but  not  well-being ;  and  the  civilization  result- 


FOURTH   ULTIMATE   IDEA  OF  REASON :    THE  GOOD.          285 

ing,  where  "wealth  accumulates  and  men  decay,"  will  intensify  and 
multiply  evil  and  not  good.  The  progress  of  the  individual  or  of  society 
towards  real  well-being  is  possible  only  as  men  discriminate  among 
objects  of  pursuit  and  sources  of  enjoyment,  according  to  their  true 
worth,  and  so  learn  to  vali3  and  seek  better  things. 


CHAPTER    XII. 


THE  ABSOLUTE:   THE  FIFTH  ULTIMATE  REALITY  KNOWN 
THROUGH  RATIONAL  INTUITION. 


I  54.    The  Absolute. 

THE  fifth  ultimate  reality  known  through  Rational  Intuition  is  the 
Absolute ;  and  this  is  accordingly  the  fifth  ultimate  idea  of  the  reason. 

I.  The  Absolute  is  that  which  exists  independent  of  anything  prere- 
quisite to  its  existence ;  or,  it  is  that  which  exists  out  of  all  necessary 
relations.     The  Absolute  is  the  Unconditioned. 

II.  The  belief  that  Absolute  Being  must  exist  is  a  rational  intuition 
necessarily  arising  in  the  effort  to  complete  the  processes  of  thought  in 
any  line  of  investigation.     For  example,  in  knowing  what  is  caused  we 
necessarily  believe  that  uncaused  being  must  exist.     If  we  admit  the 
reality  of  force  or  energy  in  the  course  of  nature  and  believe  that  every 
beginning  or  change  of  existence  has  a  cause,'  then  we  necessarily  know 
that  there  is  a  power  which  is  not  an  effect,  which  persists  in  all  changes, 
and  is  the  unconditioned  ground  of  the  entire  series.     Otherwise  power 
or  force  disappears,  the  course  of  nature  ravels  out,  and  all  that  is  left 
is  empty  antecedence  and  sequence  without  real  power  or  energy.     So 
Spencer  says :  "  The  axiomatic  truths  of  physical  science  unavoidably 
postulate  Absolute  Being  as  their  common  basis.     The  persistence  of 
the  universe  is  the  persistence  of  that  Unknown  Cause,  Power  or  Force 
which  is  manifested  to  us  through  all  phenomena.     Such  is  the  founda- 
tion of  any  possible  system  of  positive  knowledge.    Deeper  than  demon- 
stration— deeper  even  than  definite  cognition — deep  as  the  very  nature 
of  the  mind,  is  the  postulate  at  which  we  have  arrived.     Its  authority 
transcends  all  other  whatever ;  for  not  only  is  it  given  hi  the  constitu- 
tion of  our  own  consciousness,  but  it  is  impossible  to  imagine  a  con- 
sciousness so  constituted  as  not  to  give  it     ....     Thus  the  belief 
which  this  datum  constitutes  has  a  higher  warrant  than  any  other 
whatever."  *     Thus  we  are  not  shut  up  to  determine  between  the  Abso- 
lute Being  and  an  infinite  series  of  finite  causes,  but  between  the  Abso- 
lute Being  and  any  cause  or  power  whatever.     A  series  of  causes  is 

*  First  Principles,  §§  74,  76,  77,  pp.  256,  258,  98. 
286 


FIFTH  ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE  ABSOLUTE.       287 

unthinkable,  except  as  ultimately  resting  on  an  Absolute  Cause  or 
Power. 

The  same  is  true  in  the  sphere  of  rationality.  The  possibility  of  con- 
cluding reasoning  in  an  inference  which  gives  knowledge,  rests  on  uni- 
versal truths  regulative  of  all  thinking.  The  validity  of  these  universal 
truths  involves  the  existence  of  Reason  unconditioned,  universal  and 
supreme,  the  same  everywhere  and  always.  Mathematics  is  a  pure 
creation  of  the  human  mind  resting  on  self-evident  principles  of  reason. 
If  our  mathematics  is  not  true  in  all  the  stars  and  planets,  our  astronomy 
is  worthless.  The  same  is  true  of  all  the  universal  principles  which  are 
laws  of  thought.  If  they  are  not  true  everywhere  and  always  our 
science  and  all  our  reasoning  give  no  knowledge ;  the  human  mind  is 
constituted  untrustworthy.  Reason,  then,  must  be  universal  and  abso- 
lute, unconditioned  by  any  change  of  finite  things,  the  same  everywhere 
and  always.  The  alternative  is  not  between  the  Absolute  Reason  and 
the  human,  but  between  the  Absolute  Reason  and  no  Reason  or 
rational  knowledge. 

Also,  in  extension  in  space,  duration  in  time,  or  limitation  in  quan- 
tity, we  find  our  thought  carrying  us  to  the  infinite.  Finite  extension, 
duration  and  quantity  must  be  thought  as  embosomed  in  the  immensity, 
eternity  and  plenitude  of  the  infinite. 

In  our  endeavors  to  know  the  manifold  in  the  unity  of  an  all-compre- 
hending unity,  we  find  it  only  as  the  universe  is  the  manifestation  of  the 
Absolute  and  Unconditioned  One. 

Thus  in  every  line  of  thought  the  knowledge  rises  self-evident  before 
us  that  there  must  be  an  Absolute  and  Unconditioned  Being.  We  pro- 
perly recognize  it  as  a  primitive  and  universal  truth,  known  in  rational 
intuition.  The  idea  of  Absolute  Being  and  the  belief  of  its  existence 
are  in  the  background  of  human  consciousness  and  at  the  foundation  of 
all  knowledge  through  human  thought.  "  A  consciousness  which  has 
got  rid  of  the  thought  of  absolute  being  would  become  a  prey  to  endless 
atomicism  and  dissolution."  *  The  existence  of  Absolute  Being  under- 
lies the  possibility  of  all  finite  being,  power,  reasoning  and  rational 
knowledge. 

In  this  rational  intuition  a  new  sphere  of  reality  is  opened  to  human 
intelligence. 

III.  We  cannot  know  a  priori  what  the  Absolute  Being  is ;  but,  so 
far  as  this  knowledge  is  possible,  only  a  posteriori,  in  knowing  that  it 
accounts  for  the  universe,  including  both  man  and  nature.  In  the 
rational  intuition  that  Absolute  Being  exists,  it  is  known  as  the  ground 
of  the  universe.  The  knowledge  of  being  has  been  attained,  as  already 

*  Dorner,  Christlichen  Glaubenslehre,  §  18,  2  B. 


288  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

explained.  This  .intuition  gives  us  knowledge  that  a  being  exists  that 
is  absolute  and- unconditioned;  and  by  thought  we  know  further  that, 
as  the  ultimate  ground  of  the  universe,  the  absolute  must  have  all  the 
powers  necessary  to  account  for  its  existence ;  as  manifested  or  revealed 
in  the  universe,  the  Absolute  must  be  endowed  with  the  powers  which 
can  account  for  the  existence  and  ongoing  of  the  universe  and  which 
thus  are  revealed  in  it.  Hence  the  Absolute  is  the  All-conditioning  as 
well  as  the  Unconditioned.  By  rational  intuition  man  knows  that 
absolute  being  exists ;  his  knowledge  of  what  it  is,  is  progressive  with 
his  progressive  knowledge  of  man  and  nature  in  the  universe. 

Kant  objects  that,  though  the  idea  of  God  is  necessary  to  the  Reason, 
it  has  no  content  in  consciousness.  The  foregoing  remarks  show  that 
we  do  have  knowledge  what  God  is  as  he  reveals  himself  in  the  uni- 
verse. I  may  add  that  the  idea  has  content  in  consciousness  through 
the  five  ultimate  ideas  of  the  Reason.  Kant  admits  that  it  has  content 
in  consciousness  through  the  practical  reason,  in  the  knowledge  of  right 
and  wrong.  God  speaks  in  our  hearts  in  his  moral  law.  But  we  now 
see  that  God,  the  Absolute  Reason,  equally  reveals  himself  in  our  con- 
sciousness in  the  rational  ideas  of  the  True,  the  Perfect  and  the  Good  or 
Worthy.  Also,  God  reveals  himself  in  our  consciousness  in  our  reli- 
gious experience;  especially  in  the  experience  of  a  Christian  man,  the 
purest,  loftiest  and  most  comprehensive  experience  of  God's  gracious 
revelation  of  himself.  Even  in  the  religiousness  of  ruder  men  who 
know  not  Christ,  God  has  "  not  left  himself  without  witness."  God  acts 
on  men  and  they  react  upon  his  influences ;  and  thus  they  find  him  in 
their  own  consciousness.  They  know  him  and  the  spiritual  sphere  by 
this  action  and  reaction,  in  a  manner  analogous  to  that  in  which  they 
know  the  world  of  sense.  No  Christian  man  will  say  that  the  idea  of 
God  is  an  empty  idea  void  of  content  in  his  own  consciousness.  He  will 
say,  "  I  know  him  whom  I  have  believed ; "  not  the  idea  of  him  or  pro- 
positions about  him,  but  HIM. 

Herbert  Spencer,  recognizing  the  belief  of  the  existence  of  Absolute 
Power  as  a  primitive  datum  of  consciousness  and  a  priori  to  the  indi- 
vidual, would  account  for  the  belief  as  the  result  of  the  experience  of 
the  human  race,  registered  through  innumerable  generations  in  the 
human  organism  and  transmitted  by  heredity.  If  so,  men  must  have 
experienced  the  action  of  God  on  them  through  all  generations,  until 
religious  belief  and  worship  have  become  constitutional  and  the  idea  of 
an  Absolute  Being  and  the  belief  of  his  existence  have  become  primi- 
tive data  of  consciousness. 


§55.    The 
I.   The  true  absolute  must  be  distinguished  from  fa 


FIFTH  ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  KEASON :    THE^  ABSOLUTE.       289 

DIVERSITY 


assumed  in  the  current  objections  to  theism.  These  appear  in  various 
forms. 

Some  forms  of  the  pseudo-absolute  originate  in  the  attempt  to  know 
what  the  absolute  is  a  priori ;  that  is,  by  simply  developing  the  words, 
absolute,  unconditioned,  infinite.  Then  the  idea  of  the  absolute  neces- 
sarily remains  void  of  content  and  negative ;  it  is  not  conditioned  by. 
dependence  on  any  cause ;  it  is  not  limited  in  time,  space  or  quantity ; 
and  there  is  no  reality  of  which  we  predicate  the  unconditionateness  Aid 
the  illimitation. 

Other  forms  of  the  pseudo-absolute  arise  from  attempting  to  deter- 
mine empirically  what  the  absolute  is.  The  necessary  result  is  that 
some  conception  of  the  finite  is  mistaken  for  the  absolute.  Of  these  I 
may  mention  two  which  have  played  important  parts  in  the  objections 
to  theism. 

One  is  the  idea  of  the  absolute  as  "  the  ALL,"  the  mathematical  sum 
total  of  all  that  is,  the  "  omnitudo  realitatis."  It  is  supposed  that  the 
absolute  is  to  be  found  by  adding  together  all  finite  things,  until  we 
reach  "  the  All."  But  "  the  All "  thus  found  must  always  be  itself  finite. 

The  other  is  the  idea  that  the  absolute  is  the  largest  general  notion 
or  logical  concept.  The  greater  the  extent  of  a  general  notion  the  less 
its  content.  A  general  notion  including  all  reality  in  its  extent  would 
have  no  content.  It  would  have  no  peculiar  quality  by  which  it  could 
be  distinguished  from  anything  else ;  it  would  be  entirely  indeterminate. 
If  we  say  that  this  is  the  general  notion  of  being,  then  we  merely  hypos- 
tasize  the  copula ;  to  affirm  that  anything  is  a  being  is  then  the  weakest 
and  least  significant  .of  affirmations  ;  anything  is  a  being  which  can  be 
connected  by  the  copula  is  with  any  predicate.  Being  then  is  entirely 
indeterminate ;  it  is  equal  to  nothing.  And  precisely  this  is  what  some 
eminent  philosophers  mean  by  the  Absolute.  So  Hamilton  says  that 
the  idea  of  the  absolute  is  attained  "only  by  thinking  away  every  char- 
acter by  which  the  finite  was  conceived."  We  must,  then,  think  away 
all  that  we  know  of  concrete  being  and  its  properties  and  powers ;  and 
what  is  left  is  the  Absolute.  This  is  very  like  the  famous  metaphysical 
process  of  ascertaining  what  a  swallow's  nest  in  a  clay-bank  is,  by  think- 
ing away  the  bank  and  leaving  the  hole.  The  Absolute  would  be  a 
logical  general  notion  and  the  world-process  would  be  a  process  of  logic. 

II.  Many  of  the  current  objections  against  theism  are  founded  on  a 
false  idea  of  the  absolute  and  from  it  derive  all  their  force. 

1.  It  is  said  that  the  absolute  is  "pure  being',"  it  is  "the  thing  in 
itself;"  it  is  "out  of  all  relations."  These  are  results  of  attempting  to 
19 


290  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

ascertain  a  priori  what  the  absolute  is.  The  Absolute,  the  uncondi- 
tioned, the  infinite  are  adjectives  and  negatives.  It  is  impossible  by 
developing  them  a  priori  to  pass  from  the  adjective  to  the  substantive, 
from  the  negative  to  the  positive.  We  get  only  pure  being  which  is 
equal  to  nothing.  But  it  has  already  been  shown  that  being  is  known, 
not  merely  as  an  abstract  general  noti6n,  but  as  concrete  reality ;  that 
in  the  rational  intuition  of  the  Absolute  we  already  know  what  a  being 
is ;  the  knowledge  of  being  is  not  given  in  the  rational  intuition,  but 
.only  the  necessary  truth  that  a  being  must  exist  absolute  or  uncondi- 
tioned. But  in  knowing  being  as  absolute  or  unconditioned  we  do  not 
cetse  to  know  it  as  being,  endowed  with  all  the  essential  powers  of  being, 
and  with  all  the  powers  essential  to  it  as  the  ground  and  cause  of  the 
universe.  And  so  in  opposition  to  Hamilton,  J.  S.  Mill  says :  "  Any- 
thing carried  to  the  infinite  must  have  all  the  properties  of  the  same 
thing  as  finite,  except  those  which  depend  on  its  finiteness."  *  It  enters 
then  into  the  true  idea  of  the  absolute,  not  that  it  must  exist  out  of  all 
relations,  but  only  out  of  all  necessary  relations.  It  may  be  in  relation 
to  a  universe ;  it  is  known  to  us  as  the  ground  and  cause  of  the  uni- 
verse, but  it  is  not  dependent  on  it.  The  existence  of  the  universe  is 
conditioned  on  the  existence  of  God ;  but  the  existence  of  God  is  not 
conditioned  on  the  existence  of  the  universe. 

2.  There  is,  also,  a  class  of  objections  founded  on  a  false  idea  of  the 
absolute  as  the  sum  total  of  the  universe. 

It  is  objected  that  if  the  existence  of  reason  in  the  universe  proves 
that  God  is  spirit,  the  existence  of  matter  in  the  universe  equally  proves 
that  God  is  matter.  This  objection  derives  its  force  from  the  error  that 
the  absolute  is  the  sum  total  of  the  finite.  But  the  relation  of  the  abso- 
lute to  the  finite  is  not  the  mathematical  relation  of  a  total  to  its  parts, 
but  it  is  a  dynamical  and  rational  relation.  The  true  Absolute  is  a 
power  competent  to  account  for  the  existence  of  matter  dynamically 
and  rationally.  The  conclusion  of  the  objector  is  not  an  inference  from 
the  true  idea  of  the  Absolute ;  on  the  contrary,  it  is  incompatible  with 
it  and  contradictory  to  it. 

The  objection  that  evil  must  exist  in  the  Absolute  is  founded  on  the 
same  erroneous  idea.  Says  Hegel :  "  What  kind  of  an  Absolute  Being 
is  that  which  does  not  contain  in  itself  all  that  is  actual,  even  evil 
included  ? "  This  implies  that  the  absolute  is  the  sum  total  of  all 
things,  and  therefore  must  include  evil.  This  conclusion,  also,  is  not 
only  not  an  inference  from  the  true  idea  of  the  absolute,  but  it  is  con- 
tradictory to  it.  If  God  for  wise  reasons  gives  existence  to  finite  rational 
beings  in  a  moral  system,  they  in  their  free  agency  may  do  wrong.  Their 

*  Examination  of  Hamilton,  Vol.  I.,  129. 


FIFTH  ULTIMATE  IDEA  OF  REASON:    THE  ABSOLUTE.       291 

free  action  accounts  for  the  fact  of  sin  ;  to  account  for  it,  it  is  not  neces- 
sary to  infer  that  God  is  sinful,  but  only  that  for  wise  reasons  he  has 
brought  into  being  a  rational  and  moral  system  consisting  of  rational 
beings  free  to  do  right  or  to  do  wrong. 

Mausel  objects  that  "  the  distinction  between  the  possible  and  the 
actual  can  have  no  existence  as  regards  the  absolutely  infinite ;  for  an 
unrealized  possibility  is  necessarily  a  relation  and  a  limit."  *  This  rests 
on  a  pseudo-absolute  as  existing  out  of  all  relations,  and  also  on  a 
pseudo-absolute  empirically  developed  as  the  sum  of  all  that  is  already 
actually  existent.  These  objections  do  not  show  us  reason  breaking 
down  in  contradiction ;  but  only  false  philosophy  befooling  itself  in 
declaring  that  the  finite  is  itself  the  infinite,  and  the  conditioned  itself 
the  unconditioned. 

3.  The  agnostics  object  that  the  Absolute  cannot  be  a  personal  being 
because  to  predicate  of  it  personality,  is  to  limit  it ;  if  the  absolute  is 
personal,  it  must  exclude  the  impersonal.  The  objection  is  of  equal 
force  against  predicating  of  the  absolute  any  attribute  whatever ;  we 
therefore  cannot  say  that  it  exists,  for  being  exists  only  in  its  qualities 
and  powers ;  we  cannot  even  say  that  it  is  absolute  or  unconditioned, 
for  that  would  distinguish  it  from  the  finite  and  conditioned,  and  so 
would  limit  it.  This  objection  is  valid  only  of  some  form  of  the  pseudo- 
absolute.  If  the  Absolute  is  "  pure  being,"  or  "  the  All,"  as  a  sum  total 
of  finites,  or  the  largest  general  notion,  then  to  predicate  of  it  personality 
would  be  incompatible  with  the  idea  of  the  absolute  and  would  involve 
limitation.  But  it  is  not  incompatible  with  the  true  idea  of  the  abso- 
lute, and  if  predicated  of  it  involves  no  limitation. 

This  objection  is  founded  on  the  maxim,  "  Omnis  determinatio  nega- 
tio  est,"  or,  "All  definition  limits."  I  have  already  shown  that,  wThile 
this  maxim  is  true  of  mathematical  quantities  and  logical  general 
notions,  it  is  not  true  of  concrete  beings ;  that  of  these  the  contrary  is 
true ;  the  more  determinate  or  specific  a  being  is  by  the  increase  or 
multiplication  of  its  powers,  the  greater,  and  not  the  less  or  more 
limited,  is  the  being. 

§  56.    Personality  of  the  Absolute. 

I.  The  Absolute  may  be  a  person.  Reason  and  free-will  are  essen- 
tial elements  of  personality.  Will  is  Reason  energizing ;  Reason  is 
Power  rational.  Reason  is  in  its  essence  universal  and  unchanging, 
the  same  in  all  places  and  all  time,  unconditioned  and  all-conditioning. 
Reason  energizing  is  autonomic,  self-directive,  self-exertive,  free. 
Reason  realizing  its  ideals  in  action  is  the  all-perfect.  It  is  ade- 

«  Limits  of  Religious  Thought,  p.  76. 


292  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

quate  to   account  for  the  existence  of  the  universe  and  of  all  that  is 
in  it. 

II.  The  Absolute  Being  must  be  a  person.  Energizing  Reason  and 
it  alone,  adequately  accounts  for  all  that  is.  The  vindication  of  this 
proposition  requires  the  presentation  of  the  reasons  why  we  believe  that 
the  personal  God  exists,  and  does  not  come  within  the  design  of  this 
book.  It  is  therefore  relegated  to  Natural  Theology. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 
THE  THREE  GRADES  OF  SCIENTIFIC  KNOWLEDGE. 


g  57.    Definition  of  Science. 

SCIENTIFIC  knowledge  is  distinguished  from  unscientific.  Every 
one  recognizes  the  distinction ;  but  the  attempts  to  define  it  have  not 
been  satisfactory.  This  is  due  in  part  to  the  fact  that  the  word 
science  is  variously  defined  and  used  with  a  variety  of  meanings.  It  is 
idle  to  debate  whether  a  particular  branch  of  knowledge  is  science  or 
not,  so  long  as  the  disputants  are  not  agreed  as  to  the  meaning  of  the 
word.  It  is  due  also  to  a  certain  relativity  essential  in  the  idea  of 
science. 

Scientific  knowledge  is  not  distinguished  from  unscientific  knowledge 
by  being  true  or  real  knowledge.  The  unscientific  knowledge  that 
stones  fall  when  unsupported  and  that  grass  grows  is  as  true  and  real 
knowledge  as  is  the  scientific  knowledge  of  the  same  facts. 

Knowledge  is  distinguished  as  scientific  by  the  aim  and  method  of 
the  intellectual  process  by  which  it  is  attained.  Its  aim  in  respect  to 
any  reality  investigated  is  to  attain  knowledge  definite,  well  substan- 
tiated, exactly  enunciated,  complete,  and  systemized ;  its  method  is  to 
regard  all  the  true  laws  of  thought,  to  investigate  all  sources  of  know- 
ledge, and  to  use  all  the  instruments  and  means  which  ingenuity  has 
contrived  to  give  greater  exactness  and  wider  scope  to  knowledge. 
The  knowledge  acquired  by  such  a  process  is  called  scientific  know- 
ledge. The  collected  results  of  such  investigations  respecting  any 
particular  class  of  realities,  enunciated  in  propositions,  proved,  and 
systemized  constitute  a  particular  science,  as  the  science  of  Astronomy 
or  Chemistry. 

Hence  a  science  will  realize  in  a  greater  or  less  degree  the  ends 
aimed  at  by  scientific  thought.  It  will  present  knowledge  having  as 
close  an  approximation  to  definiteness  as  man  with  his  present  informa- 
tion and  means  of  investigation  can  attain  ;  substantiated  by  convincing 
evidence ;  enunciated  in  exact  terms — in  some  sciences,  as  in  chemistry 
and  botany,  in  a  nomenclature  peculiar  to  itself;  complete,  as  far  as 
men  can  yet  make  it ;  and  presenting  the  object  treated  in  its  relation 
to  other  things  and  to  the  universal  system. 

293 


294  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

It  is  not  essential  to  science  that  it  be  at  any  given  time  complete  or 
free  from  error.  It  is  called  science  in  reference  to  the  aims  and 
methods  of  the  intellectual  process  of  which  it  is  the  result,  not  in 
reference  to  its  own  absolute  correctness  and  completeness.  The  Chal- 
deans and  Egyptians  had  a  science  of  astronomy  as  really  as  we.  The 
Ptolemaic  System  of  astronomy  was  science  as  really  as  is  the  Coper- 
nican.  Otherwise  no  science  exists  so  long  as  it  is  possible  to  attain 
any  new  knowledge  on  the  subject  or  to  correct  any  errors. 

It  is  not  essential  to  constitute  knowledge  scientific,  that  it  be  the 
knowledge  of  a  law  of  nature.  Comte  held  that  knowledge  is  science 
only  when  it  enables  us  to  foresee  and  foretell  events ;  that  is,  that 
science  is  distinctively  and  essentially  the  knowledge  of  the  laws  of 
nature.  But  if  so  history,  geography,  philology,  anatomy,  descriptive 
geology,  and  all  descriptive  sciences,  so-called,  are  not  sciences.  This 
is  admitted  and  they  are  therefore  excluded  from  the  hierarchy  of 
sciences  by  Comte,  the  most  consistent  of  thinkers  in  boldly  accepting 
the  legitimate  consequences  of  his  own  principles.  Also  all  knowledge 
of  particular  facts  would  be  excluded  from  science,  as  the  knowledge 
of  the  diameter  of  the  earth  or  of  Mars,  the  time  of  their  rotation  on 
their  axis  and  of  their  revolution  around  the  sun ;  also  all  colligation 
of  facts,  as  that  by  which  we  know  that  Cuba  is  an  island  and  that>the 
orbit  of  Mars  is  a  particular  geometrical  figure. 

^58.    The  Three  Grades  of  Science  Defined. 

There  are  three  grades  of  scientific  knowledge,  by  which  the  mind 
must  ascend  in  attaining  knowledge  of  all  that  may  be  known  re- 
specting any  object  whatever.  They  may  be  named  respectively, 
Empirical,  nationalistic  or  Noetic,  and  Theological  Science ;  or  Em- 
piricism, Rationalism,  and  Theology. 

I.  The  first  grade  of  scientific  knowledge  is  Empirical  Science. 
This  is  the  knowledge  of  particular  realities  either  by  observation  or  by 
inference,  of  their  unity  in  coexisting  relations,  of  their  co-ordination 
in  the  invariable  sequences  of  causal  connection,  and  thus  of  their  unity 
in  a  system. 

The  first  step  in  empirical  science  is  gaining  knowledge  of  individual 
realities ;  as  an  astronomer  observes  a  transit  of  Venus,  a  chemist  learns 
by  experiment  the  properties  of  a  quantity  of  oxygen,  an  entomologist 
observes  an  insect.  The  second  step  is  learning  how  the  object  is  in 
unity  with  other  things  in  coexistent  relations.  Of  this,  classification 
by  resemblance  is  an  example.  The  third  step  is  co-ordination  in 
uniform  sequences.  Here  we  obtain  those  general  facts  which  are 
called  laws  of  nature,  such  as  the  law  of  gravitation,  or  of  the  conser- 
vation and  correlation  of  force.  Lastly,  empirical  science,  by  the 


THE  THREE  GRADES  OF  SCIENTIFIC  KNOWLEDGE.  295 

knowledge  of  the  unity  of  particular  realities  in  their  static  or  co- 
existing relations,  and  of  their  co-ordination  in  uniform  sequences  in 
their  dynamic  relations,  attains  to  the  knowledge  of  their  unity  in  a 
system ;  for  example,  the  unity  of  the  sun  and  planets  in  the  solar 
system. 

Empirical  Science  answers  the  question,  what  is  the  fact  ? 

There  are  two  divisions  of  empirical  science:  Physical  Science,  or 
the  science  of  nature,  founded  on  sense-perception ;  and  Psychology,  or 
the  science  of  mind,  founded  on  self-consciousness  and  the  observation 
and  history  of  men. 

II.  The  second  grade  of  scientific  knowledge  is  Noetic  or  Rationalis- 
tic Science.  This  is  founded  on  the  four  norms  or  standards  of  reason. 
It  is  the  scientific  knowledge  of  the  truths,  laws,  ideals,  and  ends  of 
Reason;  of  all  the  truths  necessarily  involved  in  them  or  inferable 
from  them  ;  and  of  all  empirically  known  reality  in  its  relation  thereto. 
Empirical  science  starts  with  the  particular  realities  presented  in  sense- 
perception  or  self-consciousness;  even  the  realities  not  immediately 
perceived  but  only  inferred,  are  realities  which  are  in  their  nature 
perceptible,  as  the  attracting  of  iron  by  a  magnet  which  I  have  not 
actually  seen.  Rationalistic  science  starts  with  the  universal  principles 
known  in  rational  intuition ;  but  it  has  already  been  shown  that  the 
first  principles  of  reason  in  themselves  have  no  content  and  give  no 
knowledge ;  and  they  are  known  in  consciousness  only  by  some  occa- 
sion in  experience.  Hence  this  second  branch  of  science  must  find 
its  content  in  the  realities  empirically  known ;  it  is  the  scientific  know- 
ledge of  empirically  known  reality  in  its  relation  to  the  truths,  laws, 
ideals,  and  ends  of  Reason.  Empirical  science  is  the  knowledge  of 
particular  facts ;  rationalistic  science  is  the  knowledge  of  the  universal 
and  necessary  in  its  relation  to  the  particular  and  contingent,  and  of 
the  particular  and  contingent  in  its  relation  to  the  universal  and  the 
necessary.  Empirical  science  recognizes  reality  as  it  is  known  in  sense- 
perception  and  self-consciousness  ;  rationalistic  science  recognizes  it  as 
it  is  known  by  the  intuitive  Reason.  The  fact  that  man  is  constituted 
capable  both  of  perceptive  intuition  and  rational,  is  the  basis  of  the 
distinction  of  empirical  science  and  noetic.  The  distinction  necessarily 
results  from  the  constitution  of  man. 

There  is  no  name  which,  as  actually  used,  denotes  precisely  this 
second  grade  of  science.  It  is  often  called  Metaphysics.  But  this 
word  is  used  to  denote  the  science  of  mind,  as  the  opposite  of  Physics 
or  the  science  of  nature.  The  science  of  mind  is  empirical  as  well  as 
noetic ;  while  the  science  of  nature  is  noetic  or  rationalistic  as  well  as 
empirical.  On  the  other  hand  metaphysics,  as  used,  never  includes 
mathematics,  which  is  indisputably  a  noetic  science  as  I  have  here  de- 


296  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

fined  it.  The  word  Metaphysics,  as  used,  includes  a  part  of  empirical 
science  and  excludes  a  part  of  noetic  science ;  and  if  employed  as  the 
name  of  the  latter  would  inevitably  mislead.  In  the  lack  of  an  ade- 
quate name  in  actual  use,  I  have  chosen  the  words,  rationalistic  or 
noetic,  as  indicating  the  distinctive  relation  of  this  branch  of  science  to 
the  principles  and  ideas  of  reason. 

There  are  three  divisions  of  noetic  science,  Mathematics,  Logic  and 
Philosophy. 

1.  Mathematics  is  the  science  deduced  from  certain  definitions  and 
axioms  of  reason  pertaining  exclusively  to   the   forms   of  space  and 
number.     Pure  mathematics  has  scarcely  any  content  of  empirically 
known  reality  other  than  the    geometrical    figures    and    arithmetical 
and  algebraical  symbols  necessary  to  aid  the  mind  in  thinking.    Space 
and  number  themselves  are  but  forms  of  things.     Mathematics  is  ap- 
plied to  measure  whatever  has  measurable  quantity. 

J.  S.  Mill  has  made  the  desperate  attempt  to  explain  mathematics 
as  an  empirical  science.*  In  his  Autobiography  he  says  that  "  the 
chief  strength  of  this  false  philosophy"  (which  recognizes  the  validity 
of  first  principles  or  rational  intuitions)  "  in  morals,  politics,  and  re- 
ligion lies  in  the  appeal  which  it  is  accustomed  to  make  to  the  evidence 
of  mathematics  and  the  cognate  branches  of  physical  science.  To 
expel  it  from  these  is  to  drive  it  from  its  stronghold,"  (pp.  225,  226.) 
And  to  accomplish  this,  he  tells  us,  he  wrote  the  discussion  of  mathe- 
matical evidence  in  his  Logic.  Mr.  Mill  here  admits  that  mathematics 
properly  ranks  with  metaphysics,  and  is  one  division  of  this  second 
grade  of  scientific  knowledge.  Prof.  W.  K.  Clifford,  in  his  Lectures 
and  Essays,  goes  farther  than  Mr.  Mill,  and  denies  both  the  exactness 
and  the  certainty  of  the  axioms  of  mathematics  and  its  demonstrated 
conclusions.  The  animus  of  both  writers  seems  to  be  to  get  rid  of  the 
argument  from  mathematics  in  support  of  the  validity  of  rational  in- 
tuitions and  of  metaphysical  science.  No  arguments,  however,  are 
likely  to  convince  men  that  they  have  learned  the  principles  and  de- 
monstrated the  conclusions  of  mathematics  by  observation  and  experi- 
ment. Till  they  are  thus  convinced  they  must  acknowledge  the  validity 
of  knowledge  through  the  intuitions  of  reason  and,  of  the  noetic  or 
rationalistic  sciences  founded  upon  them. 

2.  Logic  is  the  science  of  the  laws  of  thought,  deduced  from  certain 
axioms  of  Reason  pertaining  to  reflective  thought.     This  science  per- 
tains to  the  forms  and  laws  of  thought  rather  than  to  its  matter  or 
content. 

3.  The  third  division  of  rationalistic  science  is  Philosophy.     This  is 

*  Logic.    Book  II.,  Chaps,  v.  and  vi. 


THE  THREE  GRADES   OF  SCIENTIFIC   KNOWLEDGE.  297 

the  interpretation  and  vindication  of  empirically  known  reality  to  the 
Reason.  What  any  reality  is  and  in  what  relations  it  exists  and  acts 
being  empirically  known,  philosophy  ascertains  whether  in  existing 
and  acting  thus  it  expresses  any  truth  or  thought  of  reason,  conforms 
to  any  rational  law,  realizes  any  rational  ideal,  or  accomplishes  any 
good  approved  by  reason  as  worthy.  It  inquires  whether  and  how  it 
can  be  a  component  part  of  a  rational  system.  Philosophy  gives  the 
rationale  of  things ;  it  shows  their  reasonableness  by  showing  their 
accordance  with  the  truth,  laws,  ideals  and  ends  of  reason.  Man  is 
greater  than  the  material  universe,  for  he  brings  it  and  all  that  it 
contains  before  his  own  Reason  for  criticism  and  judgment  by  the 
rational  standards  of  Truth,  Right,  Perfection  and  Good.  If  he  finds 
any  alleged  discovery  or  fact  to  be  contradictory  to  these  standards,  or 
to  facts  already  known,  he  cannot  accept  it  as  true  but  remands  it  for 
further  investigation. 

Philosophy  is  the  pre-eminent  noetic  science.  Comte  assumes  that 
Metaphysics  consists  in  attempting  to  find  the  essence  of  things  and  in 
referring  phenomena  to  some  Abstract  entity,  as  substance,  cause,  nature. 
So  he  easily  ridiculed  it  as  adding  nothing  to  knowledge,  as  Pope  had 
done  before  him  in  making  the  great  philosopher  Martinus  Scriblerus 
affirm  that  the  essence  of  a  smoke-jack  is  its  meat-roasting  quality, 
and  as  Mr.  Huxley  does  in  suggesting  aquosity  as  explaining  the  proper- 
ties of  water.  A  celebrated  argument  is  cited  that  the  mind  must  be 
always  thinking  even  in  sleep,  because  it  is  its  essence  to  think.  Mr. 
Mill,  in  his  Essay  on  Comte,  mentions  the  use  of  the  word  in  such 
phrases  as  Essence  of  Peppermint  as  a  curious  survival  in  popular  lan- 
guage of  the  old  philosophical  idea. 

So  far  as  the  history  of  thought  justifies  these  assertions,  this  was  not 
true  philosophy,  but  an  abuse  and  misapprehension  of  it.  Kant  him- 
self has  given  occasion  for  this  misrepresentation  by  teaching  that 
reality  is  the  thing  in  itself  which  beneath  all  phenomena  transcends 
and  eludes  finite  intelligence.  But  true  philosophy  rejects  at  the 
threshold  this  transcendental  skepticism  which  denies  the  reality  of 
knowledge  whenever  it  is  relative  to  the  powers  of  an  intelligent  being, 
and  thus  lays  down  as  the  first  lawr  of  thought  that  knowledge  is  im- 
possible when  there  is  a  mind  that  knows.  Philosophy  wastes  no 
effort  in  trying  to  penetrate  the  sphere  which  may  lie  beyond  the  sphere 
of  human  intelligence ;  but  it  recognizes  the  fact  that  man  is  intelligent 
and  rational ;  and  its  proper  work  is  to  bring  all  empirically  known 
reality  into  the  light  of  reason,  to  criticise  and  judge  it  by  rational 
standards  or  norms,  and  thus  to  interpret  and  vindicate  it  to  the  reason 
as  reasonable. 

It  has  been  said  that  empirical  science  is  the  knowledge  of  phenom- 


298  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

ena,  while  philosophy  treats  of  causes.  Since  the  causal  judgment  is 
a  first  principle  of  reason,  philosophy  inquires  into  the  cause  of  things 
and  seeks  to  know  the  Cosmos  in  a  unity  of  causal  dependence.  But 
the  causal  judgment  is  not  the  only  principle  of  reason ;  and  we  have 
not  only  truths  of  reason,  but  also  the  ideas  of  the  right,  the  perfect, 
and  the  good.  Philosophy,  therefore,  cannot  be  limited  to  an  inquiry 
for  causes,  but  is  the  knowledge  of  empirically  known  reality  in  its  re- 
lations to  the  truths,  laws,  ideals  and  ends  of  reason. 

Writers  who  deny  rational  intuition  sometimes  recognize  a  distinc- 
tion between  philosophy  and  empirical  science.  Lewes,  in  the  first 
edition  of  the  Biographical  History  of  Philosophy,  defines  philosophy : 
"  It  is  the  systemization  of  the  conceptions  furnished  by  science.  As 
science  is  the  systemization  of  the  various  generalities  reached  through 
particulars,  so  philosophy  is  the  systemization  of  the  generalities  of 
generalities."  But  he  limits  it  within  his  definition  of  knowledge  as 
"  the  indisputable  conclusions  of  experience."  John  Fiske,  in'  his  "  Out- 
lines of  Cosmic  Philosophy,"  distinguishes  philosophy  from  empirical 
science,  which  he  calls  "  science  "  withoiit  any  adjective :  it  embraces  a 
wider  range  of  thought ;  the  relations  which  it  formulates  are  more 
general,  abstract  and  remote ;  it  presents  a  larger  and  more  complex 
organization  of  general  truths  into  a  coherent  system.  What  they 
here  recognize  as  philosophy  is  simply  empirical  science  in  its  wider 
range.  Hence  by  it  they  never  lift  themselves  above  the  physical. 
Like  the  ancient  giants  who  piled  up  mountains  in  order  to  reach  the 
heavens,  they  stand,  after  all,  on  masses  of  matter ;  they  never  attain 
the  spiritual  either  in  man  or  God.  But  men  can  plant  their  feet  on 
the  heights  of  the  spiritual  and  the  divine  only  as  in  the  inception 
of  knowledge  they  find  the  spiritual  and  rational  within  themselves 
and  thus  come  to  the  philosophy  which  recognizes  the  universe  as  a 
rational  system  in  which  reason  is  omnipresent  and  supreme,  and 
thence  to  theology  in  which  the  spirit  of  man  comes  into  the  presence 
of  God. 

We  have  seen  that  empirical  science  by  inference  extends  far  beyond 
observed  facts  ;  and  that  the  validity  of  its  inferences  depends  on  the 
principles  of  reason.  It  is  also  true  that  the  students  of  physical 
science  are  now  engaged  in  discussing  questions  which  are  essentially 
metaphysical.  Therefore  it  is  not  easy  to  draw  the  exact  line  of  de- 
marcation between  empirical  and  philosophical  science.  They  differ, 
however,  both  in  their  method  and  their  matter.  They  differ  in 
method :  philosophy  is  not  occupied  with  acquiring  the  knowledge  of 
particular  realities  by  observation  and  inference,  but  in  comparing 
these  already  known  realities  and  their  factual  relations  with  the  norms 
of  reason.  They  differ  in  their  matter :  for  when  empirical  science 


THREE  GRADES  OF  SCIENTIFIC  KNOWLEDGE.  299 

has  attained  the  largest  unity  of  things  in  their  merely  factual  static 
and  dynamic  relations,  philosophy  brings  it  all  into  the  light  of  reason 
and  reveals  it  as  the  expression  of  the  archetypal  thoughts  of  reason, 
as  pervaded  by  moral  government  and  law,  as  progressively  realizing 
rational  ideals,  as  accomplishing  ends  which  reason  approves  as  good, 
and  thus  as  existing  in  the  unity  of  a  rational  system.  In  empirical 
science  man  is  the  observer,  in  philosophical  science  he  is  the  inter- 
preter of  nature. 

Every  empirical  science  is  subject  to  this  scrutiny  and  judgment  of 
reason,  and  therefore  we  properly  speak  of  the  philosophy  of  any  science. 
The  results  of  all  the  empirical  sciences  are  compared  under  the  scru- 
tiny and  judgment  of  the  reason,  and  discovered  to  exist  in  the  har- 
mony of  a  rational  system  ;  hence  Krug  properly  calls  philosophy 
Urwissenschaft,  the  fundamental  science,  or  the  science  of  sciences. 

Since  philosophy  has  relation  to  the  four  first  norms  or  fundamental 
ideas  of  reason,  it  must  have  four  subdivisions : 

Speculative  Philosophy,  founded  on  the  norm  or  idea  of  the  True  ; 

Ethical  Philosophy,  founded  on  the  norm  or  idea  of  the  Eight  or 
of  Law ; 

^Esthetic  Philosophy,  founded  on  the  idea  or  norm  of  the  Perfect ; 

Teleological  Philosophy,  founded  on  the  norm  or  idea  of  the  Good. 
This  last  subdivision  is  commonly  treated  under  Ethics.  It  would 
greatly  subserve  clearness  of  ethical  x  thought  if  it  were  better  under- 
stood that  this  is  a  distinct  subject  from  the  Right.  This  has  been  so  lit- 
tle recognized  as  a  distinct  branch  of  philosophy  that  it  has  received  no 
distinct  name.  As  it  treats  the  question, "  What  ends  are  approved  by 
reason  as  worthy  and  as  such  as  good  ?  "  I  have  suggested  for  it  the  name, 
Teleological  philosophy.  It  leads  to  the  question  of  final  causes ;  it  dis- 
cusses sociology,  statesmanship,  civil  polity,  political  economy  and  what- 
ever pertains  to  the  progress  of  society  and  the  promotion  of  its  welfare. 

III.  The  third  grade  of  scientific  knowledge  is  Theology.     This  is 
the  knowledge  of  God  and  of  all  realities  of  empirical  and  rationalistic 
science  in  their  relations  to  him  and  thus  in  their  deepest  relations  and 
unity  with  each  other  as  a  universe.     As  rationalistic  science  is  founded 
on  the  four  first  noumena,  the  True,  the  Right,  the  Perfect,  and  the 
Good,  theology  is  founded  on  the  fifth  ultimate  reality  known  through 
rational  intuition,  the  Absolute.     This  is  the  highest  stage  and  culmi- 
nation of  knowledge.     In  this  we  know  all  things  in  their  unity  as  the 
universe  of  God  and  thus  know  the  true  significance  of  the  universe  as 
grounded  in  Reason,  expressing  archetypal  truth,  accordant  with  rational 
law,  progressive  towards  ideal  perfection,  and  realizing  the  true  good. 

IV.  The  mind  must  ascend  by  each  of  the  three  grades  in  order  to 
know  all  that  may  be  known  of  any  object  whatever.     The  objects  of 


300  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

human  knowledge  are  properly  classed  in  three  great  classes,  Nature, 
Man  and  God.  But  we  are  not  here  classifying  the  objects  of  know- 
ledge but  are  distinguishing  the  necessary  grades  or  stages  of  knowledge 
respecting  any  object.  In  investigating  any  object  in  nature  the  student 
must  first  learn  empirically  what  it  is  and  what  are  its  factual  static 
and  dynamic  relations ;  he  must  know  it  next  noetically  in  its  rational 
or  noetic  relations  to  the  truths,  laws,  ideals  and  ends  of  reason ;  lastly, 
he  must  know  it  theologically  as  a  component  part  of  the  rational  and 
universal  system  which  expresses  the  archetypal  thoughts  of  the  Supreme 
Reason,  that  is,  of  God.  The  mind  must  ascend  through  the  same 
grades  in  attaining  complete  and  true  knowledge  of  man.  Empirical 
knowledge  of  God  is  of  course  impossible ;  but  a  scientific  knowledge 
of  God  can  be  attained  only  by  passing  through  the  empirical  and 
rationalistic  knowledge  of  the  universe  to  the  knowledge  of  God  in 
which  alone  the  consummation  and  unity  of  all  knowledge  are  attained. 
Thus  from  a  pebble  up  to  God  the  mind  can  attain  all  that  it  is  possible 
for  it  to  know  of  any  object  only  by  the  three  grades  of  knowledge, 
the  empirical,  the  noetic,  and  the  theological. 

V.  Knowledge  in  each  of  the  three  grades  is  science,  in  the  true 
sense  of  the  word,  and  the  exclusive  appropriation  of  the  word  to  em- 
pirical science  is  unjustifiable.  I  have  already  explained  what  I  regard 
as  the  true  meaning  of  the  word  science.  If  this  is  the  true  meaning, 
then  it  is  indisputable  that  knowledge  in  each  of  the  three  grades  is 
science.  The  question  is  often  asked  whether  theology  is  a  science. 
Certainly  theology  is  not  empirical  science ;  still  less  is  it  merely  the 
empirical  science  of  nature.  But  in  the  true  meaning  of  the  word 
theology  is  science. 

Students  of  the  physical  sciences  have  accustomed  themselves  of  late 
to  limit  the  word  science  exclusively  to  empirical  science,  and  even,  in 
many  cases,  to  the  empirical  grade  of  physical  science.  Thus  Prof. 
Simon  Newcomb,  in  his  address  before  the  American  Scientific  Asso- 
ciation in  1878,  said:  "Science  concerns  itself  only  with  phenomena 
and  the  relations  which  connect  them,  and  does  not  take  account  of 
any  question  which  does  not  in  some  way  admit  of  being  brought  to 
the  test  of  observation."  This,  he  says,  is  "  fundamental  in  the  history 
of  modern  science."  Even  so  considerate  and  philosophical  a  writer 
as  Janet  says :  "  Doubtless  philosophical  thought  mingles  always  more 
or  less  with  science,  especially  in  the  sphere  of  organized  being ;  but 
science  rightly  strives  to  disengage  itself  more  and  more  from  it,  and 
to  reduce  the  problem  to  relations  capable  of  being  determined  by 
experience."*  This  is  a  legitimate  characteristic  and  aim  of  empirical 

*  Final  Causes :  Translation,  p.  117. 


THREE  GRADES   OF  SCIENTIFIC  KNOWLEDGE.  3Q1 

science,  but  it  has  no  right  to  appropriate  to  itself  exclusively  the 
name  science  and  to  distinguish  itself  as  science  from  philosophy  and 
theology.  This  abuse  of  the  word  is,  however,  becoming  common. 
The  three  grades  are  habitually  designated  as  science,  philosophy, 
and  theology,  implying  that  the  two  latter  are  not  science.  There 
is  a  mighty  power  in  words.  And  it  is  an  unworthy  artifice  for  the 
students  of  physical  science  to  appropriate  to  their  own  branch  of  study 
the  name  science  and  to  themselves  the  name  scientists.  They  can 
justify  this  only  by  reverting  to  the  complete  Positivism  of  Comte,  and 
avowing  and  maintaining  that  knowledge  is  limited  to  the  observations 
made  by  the  senses.  But  if  they  do  this,  they  must  renounce  the  im- 
portant part  of  their  own  sciences  known  by  inferences  depending  for 
their  validity  on  rational  intuitions,  and  must  abandon  as  utterly  un- 
scientific the  questions  which  now  most  occupy  public  attention  in  the 
annual  meetings  both  of  the  British  and  the  American  Scientific  Asso- 
ciations. They  must  also  exclude  from  science  mathematics  and  logic 
as  well  as  philosophy  and  theology.  And  in  fact  Prof.  Newcomb's 
definition  does  equally  exclude  them  all. 

g  59.    Proof  of  the  Doctrine. 

I.  The  three  grades  of  scientific  knowledge  are  necessary  from  the 
constitution  of  the  human  mind. 

1.  Since  knowledge  begins  in  presentative  intuition  and  as  such  is 
tta  knowledge  of  particular  realities,  scientific  knowledge  must  begin 
as  empirical  science.  Man  cannot  think  till  he  has  realities  known  as 
facts  to  think  about.  The  first  step  in  science  must  be  to  attain  pre- 
cise knowledge  of  particular  facts  and  their  factual  relations.  This  is 
empirical  science.  In  it  the  investigator  aims  merely  to  clear  around 
himself  an  area  in  which  he  can  see  every  object  distinctly  and  attain 
a  definite  knowledge  of  it.  While  he  depends  on  noetic  principles  for 
the  validity  of  the  inferences  by  which  he  extends  his  knowledge  to 
facts  beyond  his  immediate  observation,  yet  the  knowledge  obtained 
from  whatever  source  is  simply  the  knowledge  of  particular  realities  and 
the  factual  relations  in  which  they  coexist  or  are  co-ordinated  in  inva- 
riable sequences.  Empirical  science  no  more  takes  cognizance  of 
God  than  a  mechanic  investigating  a  watch  takes  cognizance  of  the 
man  who  made  it.  It  asks  no  questions  whether  or  not  the  observed 
realities  express  rational  truths,  conform  to  rational  law,  realize  ra- 
tional ideas,  or  accomplish  rational  ends.  The  aim  of  the  investi- 
gator is  to  clear  the  area  from  all  obscurity,  to  divest  it  of  all  coloring 
of  his  own  preconceived  ideas,  and  clearly  to  apprehend  all  the  reali- 
ties factually  in  it  and  open  to  clear  and  definite  knowledge,  and 
nothing  else.  This  is  the  real  and  legitimate  sphere  of  empirical 


302  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

science ;  and  it  is  perfectly  legitimate  for  its  students  to  affirm  that  it 
takes  no  cognizance  of  any  question  of  theology  or  philosophy.  Their 
error  and  offence  lie  in  their  claim  that  empirical  science  is  the  only 
science,  and  in  thus  denying  that  the  realities  recognized  in  philosophy 
and  theology  are  objects  of  human  knowledge. 

2.  Knowledge  originates  as  at  once  sense-perception  and  self-con- 
sciousness ;  thus  in  its  very  inception  it  is  knowledge  of  the  phenomena 
of  nature  and  mind,  and  necessitates  the  investigation   and    certifies 
the  possibility  of  knowledge  in  both  spheres.     Accordingly  empirical 
science  is  the  science  both  of  nature  and  of  mind.     On  the  one  hand 
is  the  perception  of  outward  objects,  on  the  other  the  consciousness  of 
self;  on  the  one  hand  the  sphere  of  matter  and  force,  on  the  other 
the  sphere  of  conscious  rationality  and  of  voluntary  and  free  powrer. 
The  distinction  between  these  never  has  been  and  never  can  be  ob- 
literated;  the  facts  remain  forever  the  data  of  two  distinct  spheres 
of  thought.     The  distinction  inheres  in  the  very  essence  of  human 
knowledge  and  comes  to  light  in  its  very  inception.      Once  having  en- 
tered these  two  spheres  of  thought  the  mind  must  compare  them  and 
find  their  unity  and  harmony.     This  comparison  of  the  physical  and 
the  mental  leads  necessarily  to  philosophy  and  ultimately  to  theology. 
This  can  be  prevented  only  by  denying  with  Comte  that  self-conscious- 
ness is  a  source  of  knowledge.     For  self-consciousness  is  a  door  opening 
into  rationalistic  science,  and  so  long  as  it  stands  open  human  thought 
will  push  in  to  philosophy  and  to  theology. 

3.  The  fact  that  the  mind  is  constituted  with  the  power  of  rational 
intuition  makes  these  three  grades  of  scientific  knowledge  inevitable. 
This  fact  has  already  been  fully  established.     Whoever  admits  it  must 
admit  the  reality  of  rationalistic  and  theological,  as  well  as  of  empirical 
science.     The  knowledge  of  the  fundamental  realities,  the  True,  the 
Right,  the  Perfect  and  the  Good,  is  the  basis  of  rationalistic  science. 
The  knowledge  of  the  fundamental  reality,  the  Absolute,  is  the  basis  of 
theological  science. 

II.  A  second  proof  of  the  reality  of  these  three  grades  of  scientific 
knowledge  is  the  common  recognition  of  them  in  the  history  of  human 
thought. 

They  are  recognized  in  common  life.  Every  one,  learned  or  un- 
learned, talks  metaphysics,  usually,  as  M.  Jourdain  talked  prose  all  his 
life,  without  knowing  it.  Whewell  says:  "We  often  hear  persons 
declare  that  they  have  no  esteem  for  metaphysics  and  intend  to  shun 
all  metaphysical  reasoning ;  and  this  is  usually  the  prelude  to  some 
very  bad  metaphysical  reasoning."  * 

*  History  of  Moral  Philosophy. 


THREE  GRADES  OF  SCIENTIFIC   KNOWLEDGE.  3Q3 

Empiricists,  who  set  out  to  exclude  all  knowledge  except  of  phe- 
nomena, find  themselves  obliged  to  use  the  principles  of  reason,  and 
continually  slide  into  the  discussion  of  both  philosophical  and  theological 
questions.  When  they  speak  of  body,  or  matter,  or  force,  they  are  as 
metaphysical  as  the  philosopher  when  he  speaks  of  mind.  Nature  is 
traversed  by  Keason,  and  therefore  physics  must  use  metaphysics. 

The  conflicts  of  these  types  of  thought  and  the  discussions  of  their 
respective  claims  through  all  ages,  show  the  persistent  power  which 
each  has  over  the  human  mind. 

Any  attempt  to  dispossess  one  of  them  of  its  place  produces  a  sort  of 
convulsion  in  the  world  of  thought  and  issues  in  agnosticism.  Great 
systems  of  Materialism  or  Sensationalism,  on  the  one  hand,  and  of 
Idealism,  on  the  other,  have  arisen ;  but  the  avenger  of  the  excluded 
knowledge  always  comes  in  the  shape  of  agnosticism  or  universal  skep- 
ticism, and  destroys  knowledge  altogether.  Over  and  over  it  has  been 
demonstrated  that  the  attempt  to  hold  one  of  these  grades  as  the  whole 
of  knowledge  involves  universal  skepticism.  Even  the  most  pronounced 
advocates  of  the  theory  that  all  knowledge  is  from  the  senses,  find  the 
need  of  philosophy  to  supplement  empiricism.  Says  Haeckel :  "  The 
strong  edifice  of  true  monistic  science,  or,  what  is  the  same  thing,  the 
science  of  nature,  exists  only  by  the  closest  interaction  and  the  recip- 
rocal penetration  of  philosophy  and  empirical  knowledge.  The  lament- 
able estrangement  between  science  and  philosophy,  and  the  rude  empi- 
ricism which  is  nowadays  unfortunately  praised  by  most  naturalists  as 
Natural  Science,  have  given  rise  to  those  strange  freaks  of  the  under-' 
standing,  to  those  gross  insults  against  elementary  logic,  and  to  that 
incapacity  of  forming  the  simplest  conclusions,  which  one  may  meet 
with  any  day  in  all  branches  of  science."  *  Although  Prof.  Haeckel's 
theory  of  knowledge  prevents  him  and  others  who  hold  the  same  from 
attaining  an  adequate  conception  of  what  philosophy  is,  yet  in  their 
recognition  of  it  we  have  their  testimony  to  the  impossibility  of  com- 
pleting scientific  knowledge  in  mere  empiricism  and  the  necessity  of  a 
noetic  science  that  transcends  it. 

The  threefold  distinction  has  been  recognized  by  profound  thinkers  in 
all  ages.  Lord  Bacon,  for  example,  recognizes  three  grades  of  know- 
ledge. Of  these  he  says  that  to  the  devout "  they  are  as  the  three  acclama- 
tions, Holy,  Holy,  Holy:  holy  in  the  description  or  dilatation  of  his 
works,  holy  in  the  concatenation  of  them,  and  holy  in  the  union  of  them 
in  a  perpetual  and  .uniform  law."  His  threefold  division  of  knowledge 
is  not  in  form  the  same  with  that  which  has  been  here  presented ;  but 
in  his  discussion  of  it  in  various  places  he  explicitly  recognizes  as  real 

*  History  of  Creation,  Translation,  Vol.  II.,  pp.  349,  350. 


304  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

knowledge  and  legitimate  spheres  of  investigation  each  of  the  three 
grades  of  knowledge  here  set  forth.  Lord  Bacon  is  constantly  cited  as 
denying  that  final  causes  are  within  the  scope  of  human  knowledge. 
But  his  famous  remark  that  final  causes  are  like  vestal  virgins,  conse- 
crated to  religion  and  therefore  barren,  was  made  by  him  with  exclusive 
reference  to  physical  science.  It  is  continually  quoted  out  of  its  con- 
,  nection,  so  as  to  misrepresent  his  meaning.  Whoever  will  examine  his 
discussions  of  the  scope  and  departments  of  human  knowledge  will  see 
that,  while  he  denies  that  the  study  of  final  causes  belongs  in  physical 
science  and  affirms  that  the  study  of  them  as  physical  science  has  hin- 
dered scientific  progress,  he  also  recognizes  metaphysics  as  an  additional 
sphere  of  human  knowledge  and  includes  in  it  the  knowledge  of  final 
causes  as  real  knowledge  and  the  study  of  them  as  a  legitimate  branch 
of  inquiry.  *  >  To  those  who  misrepresent  him,  we  commend  his  own 
words :  "  Let  no  man  upon  a  weak  conceit  of  sobriety  or  an  ill-applied 
moderation  think  or  maintain  that  a  man  can  search  too  far  or  be  too 
well  studied  in  the  book  of  God's  word  or  the  book  of  God's  works, 
divinity  or  philosophy,  but  rather  let  men  endeavor  an  endless  progress 
or  proficiency  in  both ;  only  let  men  beware  that  they  apply  both  to 
charity  and  not  to  swelling,  and,  again,  that  they  do  not  unwisely  mingle 
or  confound  these  learnings  together."! 

III.  A  third  proof  of  the  reality  of  the  three  grades  of  scientific 
knowledge  is  in  the  fact  that  they  are  reciprocally  dependent  and  that 
each  is  necessary  for  the  completion  of  the  knowledge  of  any  object.  • 

\  6O.   The  Harmony  of  Empirical,  Rationalistic  and 
Theological  Science. 

Empirical,  Rationalistic  or  Noetic,  and  Theological  Science  are  recip- 
rocally dependent  and  complemental,  and  therefore  necessarily  in 
harmony. 

I.  Science  in  each  lower  grade  assumes  and  depends  on  the  princi- 
ples of  the  higher. 

1.  Empirical  science  assumes  and  depends  on  the  intuitions  of  reason 
which  are  the  first  principles  of  rational  science.  It  depends  on  them 
for  the  certainty  of  its  knowledge  by  observation  and  experiments,  the 
conclusiveness  of  its  inductions,  deductions  and  verifications,  and  for  the 
laws  which  regulate  all  thought.  It  cannot  verify  its  own  first  princi- 
ples ;  it  accepts  them  from  a  higher  source  of  knowledge.  Physical 
science  depends  on  Mathematics,  which  itself  is  purely  a  rationalistic 
or  noetic  science.  Physical  science  is  ontological ;  it  has  passed  away 

*  Advancement  of  Learning,  B.  II. ;  De  Augmentis,  B.  III. 
f  Advancement  of  Learning,  B.  I. 


THREE  GRADES  OF  SCIENTIFIC  KNOWLEDGE.  3Q5 

from  the  Positivism  of  Comte,  who  recognized  only  phenomena  and 
motion  and  denied  all  knowledge  of  matter  and  force,  and  concerns 
itself  with  matter  and  forces,  with  atoms,  molecules,  and  ethers.  It 
assumes  that  the  problem  of  ontology  is  solved  and  that  ontological 
knowledge,  the  knowledge  of  being  and  force  as  distinguished  from  the 
knowledge  of  phenomena  and  motion,  is  actually  attained.  Thus  at 
every  step  it  rests  on  the  principles  of  rationalistic  or  noetic  science. 
If  rational  intuitions  are  not  valid  the  whole  fabric  of  empirical  science 
dissolves. 

2,  Noetic  Science  in  recognizing  the  first   principles  of  reason  as 
universal  and  necessary  assumes  the  existence  and  supremacy  of  the 
universal  and  absolute  Reason,  which  is  the  first  principle  of  theology. 
Noetic  science   has  its  own   principles   of  reason    and   attains   from 
them  its  own  norms,  the  ultimate  ideas   of  the  true,  the   right,  the 
perfect  and  the  good,  and  develops  them  in  mathematics,  logic  and 
philosophy.     Yet  it  rests  on  the  assumption  that  Reason  is  supreme, 
universal,  unconditioned    and   absolute,  and   thus   itself  derives  the 
deepest  principles  of  human  thought  from  beyond  and  above  itself, 
from  the  sphere  of  theology. 

3.  Theology  contains  its  fundamental  principle  within  itself.     The 
principle  that  reason  is  supreme,  universal  and  absolute  is  the  deepest 
foundation  of  human  thought,  its  truth  is  implied  in  the  reality  of 
every  kind  of  human  knowledge,  and  knowledge,  in  whatever  direction 
it  is  pushed,  must  ultimately  rest  on  this  foundation.     If  reason  is  not 
absolute  and  supreme,  no  knowledge,  theological,  noetic  or  empirical 
exists.     Here  is  the  ultimate  goal  and  rest  of  the  human  intelligence. 
Every  attempt  to  project  thought  behind  the  absolute  Being  issues  in 
mere  negations,  which  are  symbols  of  the  cessation  of  thought. 

II.  Science  in  each  higher  grade  rests  on  the  lower  for  truths  and 
facts  which  give  it  content. 

1.  Noetic  or  rationalistic  science  depends  on  the  empirical  for  its 
content.  If  there  were  no  empirically  known  facts  and  their  factual 
coexistent  and  co-ordinated  relations,  there  would  be  nothing  to  which 
to  apply  rational  principles  or  about  which  to  ask  philosophical  ques- 
tions. Rational  principles  advance  us  in  knowledge  only  as  they  are 
applied  to-  ascertained  facts.  They  are  the  wings  of  the  soul ;  but  un- 
availing for  flight  towards  the  source  of  light  without  the  atmosphere 
of  empirically  known  reality.  Empirical  science  itself,  as  we  have 
seen,  passes  beyond  positivism  or  phenomenalism  to  ontological  know- 
ledge. 

It  must  be  added  that  by  recognizing  the  dependence  of  philosophy 
on  empirically  ascertained  facts,  the  philosophical  student  obtains  a 
valuable  and  indispensable  discipline  in  the  spirit  and  methods  of 
20 


30G  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

empirical  science,  and  learns  carefulness  and  thoroughness  in  investi- 
gation, steadfastness  in  adhering  to  facts,  sobriety  in  speculation  and 
hypothesis,  cautiousness  in  reasoning  and  in  drawing  conclusions.  Phil- 
osophy, then,  must  use  the  facts  ascertained  by  empirical  science ;  be- 
cause, otherwise,  it  is  void  of  content  and  reality,  and  because  discipline 
in  the  empirical  spirit  and  method  is  important  to  the  safety  and  so- 
briety of  its  reasonings.  Without  these  in  the  study  of  philosophy,  to 
use  the  language  of  Milton,  more  vigorous  than  elegant,  we  are  "  de- 
luded with  ragged  notions  and  brabblements  and  dragged  to  an  asinine 
feast  of  sow-thistles  and  brambles." 

This  is  set  forth  by  Lord  Bacon  in  the  simile  of  the  spider,  ant  and 
bee :  "  Those  who  have  treated  of  the  sciences  have  been  either  em- 
pirical or  dogmatical.  The  former,  like  ants,  only  heap  and  use  their 
store ;  the  latter,  like  spiders,  spin  out  of  themselves  their  web.  The 
bee,  a  mean  between  the  two,  extracts  matter  from  the  flowers  of  the 
garden  and  the  field,  but  elaborates  and  fashions  it  by  her  own  efforts. 
The  true  labor  of  philosophy  resembles  hers ;  for  it  neither  relies  en- 
tirely nor  principally  on  powers  of  the  mind,  nor  yet  lays  up  in  memory 
the  matter  afforded  by  the  experiments  of  natural  history  and  me- 
chanics in  their  raw  state,  but  changes  and  elaborates  them  in  the 
understanding.  We  have  good  reason,  therefore,  to  derive  hope  from 
a  closer  and  purer  alliance  of  these  faculties  (the  experimental  and 
the  rational),  than  has  yet  been  attempted."* 

The  error  of  the  mediaeval  philosophy  was  the  neglect  of  this  de- 
pendence of  philosophy  on  facts,  and  the  attempt  to  educe  knowledge 
too  exclusively  from  a  priori  principles  and  logical  forms  of  thought. 
The  result  was  a  jargon  of  universals  and  particulars,  of  essence  and 
accidents,  of  entities  and  quiddities,  of  Petreities  and  Johannities  which 
hindered  philosophical  science  quite  as  much  as  empirical,  and  served 
no  useful  purpose  but  to  illustrate  the  infinite  divisibility  of  thought 
and  to  warn  all  succeeding  scholars  against  the  divorce  of  rational 
from  empirical  science.  Equally  fruitless  must  be  any  attempt  to  de- 
velop from  a  priori  principles  alone,  any  rational  science,  whether 
psychology,  cosmology,  ethics,  politics,  or  theology.  It  tends  to  sub- 
stitute abstract  notions  for  concrete  realities,  words  for  things;  it 
impairs  the  capacity  to  discriminate  between  the  important  and  the 
unimportant,  the  actual  and  the  verbal,  and.  degenerates  into  the  dis- 
cussion of  puerile  questions  and  disputes  about  words. 

The  discussion  of  such  questions  became  a  common  characteristic  of 
decaying  literature  in  the  decline  of  the  Roman  Empire.  It  was  also 
common  in  the  Middle  Ages  and  contributed  to  the  "  word- weariness  " 

*  Novum  Organum,  B.  I.,  §  95. 


THREE  GRADES  OF  SCIENTIFIC  KNOWLEDGE.  307 

which  prepared  men  to  welcome  the  Renaissance  and  the  Reforma- 
tion. 

Mr.  Mill,  in  his  Essay  on  Comte  says :  "  No  one,  unless  entirely  ig- 
norant of  the  history  of  thought,  will  deny  that  the  mistaking  of  ab- 
stractions for  realities  pervaded  speculation  all  through  antiquity  and 
the  Middle  Ages.""  Mr.  Mill  himself  is  the  one  whom  this  sweeping 
and  unwarranted  assertion  convicts  of  "  ignorance  of  the  history  of 
thought,"  His  assertion  is  refuted  by  recent  observations  which  have 
demonstrated  the  surprising  accuracy  of  Aristotle  as  a  scientific  ob- 
server, and  by  the  more  careful  investigation  of  the  progress  of  em- 
pirical science  among  the  Greeks  and  the  Egyptians,  and  by  the  re- 
markable anticipations  of  modern  discoveries  made  by  their  meta- 
physical philosophers.  It  is,  however,  an  example  of  unwarranted 
assertions  and  hasty  generalizations  respecting  the  history  of  human 
thought  which  are  too  common  with  those  who  are  trying  to  exclude 
noetic  or  metaphysical  science  and  theology  from  the  sphere  of  human 
knowledge.  Even  in  the  Middle  Ages  there  were  vigorous  thinkers  in 
empirical,  rationalistic  and  theological  science  who  rendered  valuable 
service  in  promoting  intellectual  progress  and  culture.  If  "  word- 
weariness  "  prepared  for  the  Reformation,  yet  what  had  engendered  the 
"  word-weariness  "  and  given  the  impulse  to  the  investigation  of  reality  ? 
what  but  the  necessity  of  the  three  grades  of  knowledge  and  the  labors 
of  vigorous  thinkers  in  them  during  those  dark  ages  ?  It  must  be 
remembered  that  the  Renaissance  and  the  Reformation  were  them- 
selves the  legitimate  offspring  of  the  intellectual  and  religious  life 
which  preceded  them,  the  products  of  the  spiritual  forces  of  the 
Middle  Ages  themselves.  It  is  very  easy  by  hasty  generalization  to 
give  a  sweeping  description  of  the  life  of  an  age  by  one  characteristic. 
But  it  is  as  superficial  as  it  is  easy.  In  all  ages  of  civilization  the 
human  mind  will  be  found  exhibiting  the  same  constitution  and  think- 
ing under  the  same  laws  of  thought.  Men  are  always  liable  to  mis- 
takes; peculiar  circumstances  may  give  peculiar  prominence  to  one 
grade  of  scientific  thought  in  one  age  and  to  another  in  another. 
But  it  will  be  found  in  every  civilized  age  or  individual  that  the  three 
grades  of  scientific  thought  coexist,  that  they  are  not  each  exclusive 
of  the  others,  but  each  complemental  to  the  others.  Scientific  know- 
ledge is  a  seamless  garment ;  the  threads  are  distinguishable  but  woven 
together ;  they  can  be  separated  only  by  a  rent ;  they  can  be  completely 
parted  only  by  disintegrating  the  whole  texture. 

2.  Theology  depends  on  noetic  and  empirical  science  to  give  the 
occasion  on  which  the  idea  of  Absolute  Being  arises,  and  to  give  con- 

*  As  originally  published  in  Westminster  Review,  April,  1865. 


308  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

tent  to  the  idea.  Without  the  facts  and  truths  of  empirical  and 
rationalistic  science  the  human  mind  would  never  attain  the  idea  of 
the  universe  nor  ask  how  it  is  to  be  accounted  for.  Without  these,  if 
the  idea  of  the  Absolute  should  arise,  it  would  remain  an  unknowable 
something  without  content.  Theology,  then,  must  not  be  divorced 
from  empirical  and  noetic  science ;  it  is  in  vain  to  attempt  to  develop 
it  immediately  from  the  a  priori  idea  of  absolute  being.  The  attempt 
to  do  so  has  vitiated  not  a  little  of  modern  theological  thought ;  notably 
the  Pantheistic  philosophies  of  Germany  and  the  agnosticism  of  Ham- 
ilton. We  learn  what  God  is,  not  by  an  immediate  development  of  the 
a  priori  idea  of  the  absolute,  but  by  ascertaining  through  empirical 
and  philosophical  science,  what  the  universe  is,  to  account  for  which 
the  existence  of  God  is  necessary,  and  what  the  Absolute  Being  must 
be  who  is  adequate  to  account  for  it. 

A  criticism  of  the  late  Dr.  Draper  says :  "  In  discussing  human  his- 
tory and  religion,  he  began  with  the  tangible  and  physical  facts,  while 
theology,  which  he  disliked  cordially,  begins  and  proceeds  very  differ- 
ently. But  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  Dr.  Draper's  method,  which 
he  intended  to  be  severely  inductive,  will  eventually  control  the  whole 
domain  of  ethics,  theology  and  metaphysics."  The  critic  utters  a  very 
common  misrepresentation  of  theology.  Theology  begins,  as  all  science 
must,  with  empirical  knowledge  of  facts.  But  it  is  empirical  know- 
ledge of  one's  self  as  well  as  of  the  outward  world,  of  thought,  intel- 
ligence, will,  virtue  known  in  self-consciousness,  as  well  as  of  "  tangible 
and  physical  facts  ; "  and  from  this  the  mind  proceeds  to  mathematics, 
logic,  philosophy  and  theology.  The  false  method  of  procedure  is  that 
commended  by  the  critic,  in  which  knowledge  begins  as  empirical,  but 
is  never  able  to  pass  beyond  the  empiricism,  and  remains  shut  up  in 
it — and  that  an  empiricism  which  willfully  refuses  to  take  notice  of  one 
half  of  the  facts  given  in  perceptive  intuition. 

3.  Empirical  science  depends  for  its  content  on  no  grade  of  scien- 
tific knowledge  below  itself.  It  derives  its  content  immediately  from 
sense-perception  and  self-consciousness.  From  these  it  receives  the  raw 
material  of  knowledge  and  takes  the  first  step  in  elaborating  this  raw 
material  into  science.  While  noetic  and  theological  science  have  a 
certain  independence  as  to  their  principles,  but  depend  on  empirical 
science  for  their  content  of  facts,  empirical  science  has  a  certain  inde- 
pendence as  to  its  content  of  facts  but  depends  on  rationalistic  or  noetic 
and  theological  science  for  its  principles.  While  in  the  constitution 
of  the  mind  empirical  science  has  its  root  in  the  presentative  intuition, 
noetic  and  theological  science  have  their  root  in  the  rational  intuition. 

III.  Science  in  its  lower  grades  raises  questions  which  only  science 
in  a  higher  grade  can  answer. 


THREE  GRADES  OF  SCIENTIFIC  KNOWLEDGE.  399 

1.  Empirical  Science  ascertains  particular  realities  and  their  factual 
static  and  dynamic  relations,  but  transmits  its  unanswered  questions 
to  rationalistic  science.  Its  area  of  reality  it  clears  of  obscurity  and 
presents  definite  and  clear  in  the  light  of  factual  knowledge.  But 
in  these  empirical  investigations  a  cloud  of  questions  arise  which  em- 
pirical science  cannot  answer ;  they  rise  before  the  steps  of  the  ex- 
plorer like  a  flight  of  grasshoppers,  only  to  settle  a  little  further  on. 
Empirical  science  clears  its  area  of  mystery  by  putting  away  these 
questions  not  by  answering  them.  It  does  not  issue  in  complete  know- 
ledge but  in  unsolved  problems  and  unanswered  questions.  In  the 
study  of  empirical  science  all  the  questions  of  metaphysics  thrust 
themselves  on  the  inquirer  and  crowd  him  up  to  a  higher  point  of  view 
from  which  he  can  see  the  particular  in  its  relation  to  the  universal. 
In  these  questions  we  are  forced  to  see  that  the  sphere  of  human  intel- 
ligence outreaches  the  sphere  of  empirical  science  and  encompasses  it ; 
in  them  empirical  science  verifies  the  words  of  H.  Spencer,  that  "  there 
must  exist  some  principle  which,  as  the  basis  of  science,  cannot  be  ex- 
plained by  science."  That  which  is  held  in  the  cup  cannot  contain  the 
cup.  In  studying  empirical  science,  the  observer  necessarily  comes 
in  sight  of  a  reality  transcending  and  encompassing  the  observed  phe- 
nomena, the  existence  of  which  he  must  acknowledge,  but  which  em- 
pirical science  cannot  fathom  nor  comprehend — a  sphere  of  intelli- 
gence encompassing  empirical  science  as  the  sea  encompasses  the 
land.  Travel  within  the  sphere  of  empirical  science  in  whatever  di- 
rection you  will,  sooner  or  later  you  come  in  sight  of  that  all  compre- 
hending ocean. 

"  So  in  a  season  of  calm  weather, 
Though  inland  far  we  be, 
Our  souls  catch  sight  of  the  immortal  sea 
Which  brought  us  hither; 
Can  in  a  moment  travel  thither, 
And  see  the  children  sport  upon  the  shore, 
And  hear  the  mighty  waters  rolling  evermore." 

2.  Philosophy  solves  these  unsolved  problems  and  answers  these  un- 
answered questions  of  empirical  science ;  it  comprehends  it,  its  facts 
and  its  factual  classes  and  laws,  in  their  relations  to  the  truths,  laws, 
ideals  and  ends  of  reason.  This  office  of  philosophy  Lange  recognizes : 
"  If  the  men  of  science  voluntarily  come  back  to  philosophy  without 
departing  from  the  strictness  of  scientific  method,  ...  if  philosophy, 
instead  of  being  an  extreme,  rather  forms  a  link  between  the  most 
various  sciences  and  effects  a  fruitful  interchange  of  positive  results, 
then  we  will  admit  that  she  is  capable  once  more  of  the  great  function 
of  holding  up  to  the  age  the  torch  of  criticism,  of  gathering  the  rays  of 


310  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

knowledge  into  a  focus,  and  of  advancing  and  regulating  the  revolutions 
in  the  historical  progress  of  thought."  * 

But  philosophy,  while  it  answers  the  questions  and  solves  the  pro- 
blems of  empirical  science,  itself  starts  new  problems  and  questions 
which  it  cannot  solve.  For  the  solution  of  these  problems  and  questions 
philosophy  must  pass  onwards  to  theology.  Philosophy  can  interpret 
empirical  science  and  give  the  rationale  of  .its  phenomena ;  but,  like 
empirical  science,  it  must  rest  on  a  principle  which,  as  the  basis  of 
philosophy,  philosophy  cannot  explain. 

That  principle  is  the  existence  of  the  supreme  and  absolute  Reason, 
which,  as  ever  energizing  in  the  universe,  we  call  God.  Here  the  intel- 
lect reaches  the  highest  summit  of  thought  and  rests.  Not  that  we  have 
cleared  away  all  mystery.  The  mystery  of  God  remains.  We  cannot 
comprehend  God  because  by  the  knowledge  of  him  we  comprehend  all 
else.  But  we  have  attained  a  position  from  which  we  can  clearly  see 
all  that  lies  beneath.  And  of  God  we  know  that  the  reality  of  his 
being  is  assured,  because  without  it  science  is  meaningless,  philosophy 
is  impossible  and  knowledge  vanishes  like  a  dream.  His  absolute 
rationality,  power  and  love  are  assured,  because  these  are  the  positive 
ideas  of  God  by  which  we  find  the  unity,  the  significance  and  the 
reality  of  all  that  is.  Our  knowledge  of  -him  is  positive,  though  it  is 
limited.  Thought  cannot  comprehend  God,  but  by  Him  it  comprehends 
the  universe.  Without  God  the  discoveries  of  physical  science  only 
make  the  universe  the  more  inexplicable ;  they  reveal  its  physical 
greatness  and  complexity,  but  they  reveal  it  expressing  no  rational 
thought,  accomplishing  no  rational  end,  existing  only  as  the  abode  of 
the  dying  and  a  mausoleum  of  the  dead,  or  as  an  ocean  of  heaving 
forces  producing  only  bubbles  that  vanish  as  soon  as  they  are  formed. 
But  when  we  know  God  we  see  in  the  universe  reason  supreme  and 
universal;  almighty  power  obedient  to  the  supreme  reason,  ever 
expressing  the  thoughts  of  perfect  wisdom  in  acts  of  perfect  love ;  a 
rational  and  moral  system  to  which  the  system  of  nature  is  subordinate 
and  in  which  the  ends  of  righteousness  and  benevolence  are  progress- 
ively realized  forever ;  rationality  ultimate,  all-pervading,  all-control- 
ling, expressing  itself  in  all  created  things.  God  is  the  greatest  of 
mysteries  and  the  clearing  of  all  other  mysteries.  The  darkness  and 
clouds  about  his  throne  are  gathered  from  the  face  of  the  universe, 
leaving  it  in  light.  Deny  God,  and  the  darkness  and  clouds  spread 
again  over  the  face  of  the  universe. 

Thus  science  in  its  lower  grades  goes  to  school  to  theology,  carrying 
the  hard  questions  and  unsolved  problems  which  transcend  its  sphere 

*  Geschichte  des  Materialismus,  B.  II.,  sect.  2,  chap.  1,  note  A. 


THREE  GRADES  OF  SCIENTIFIC  KNOWLEDGE.  31 1 

to  theology  to  explain.  Theology  is  the  science  of  sciences,  the  philos- 
ophy of  philosophies.  AJ  Lord  Bacon  says :  "  Another  error  ...  is 
that  after  the  distribution  of  the  particular  arts  and  sciences,  men  have 
abandoned  universality  or  prima  philosophia.  This  cannot  but  .... 
stop  all  progression.  For  no  perfect  discovery  can  be  made  on  an  exact 
flat  or  level ;  neither  is  it  possible  to  discover  the  more  remote  or  deeper 
parts  of  any  science,  if  you  stand  but  on  the  level  of  the  same  science 
and  ascend  not  to  a  higher  science."  * 

IV.  The  largest  unity  which  science  in  a  lower  grade  attains  is 
incomplete  and  finds  its  completion  in  a  higher  grade.  In  transforming 
spontaneous  knowledge  into  reflective,  thought  necessarily  culminates 
in  knowing  the  manifold  of  reality  in  unity.  In  this,  empirical  science 
culminates.  The  unities  at  first  found  are  small  and  partial.  But  with 
every  advancement  of  knowledge  they  comprehend  a  wider  range  of 
reality.  Man  comes  to  know  the  earth,  the  solar  system,  the  sun  and 
stars  themselves  as  a  system.  He  knows  general  laws  of  wider  and 
wider  comprehensiveness  till  he  has  come  to  the  laws  of  gravitation  and 
of  the  conservation  and  correlation  of  forces.  He  gains  the  idea  of  the 
Cosmos,  or  system  of  nature.  How  immense  the  labor  of  human 
thought  and  the  progress  of  human  knowledge  before  even  the  idea  of  a 
Cosmos  was  possible !  This  is  the  largest  unity  attainable  by  physical 
science ;  and  this  unity  it  cannot  attain  except  by  the  mathematical  and 
philosophical  principles  of  noetic  science  ;  nor  is  it  an  all-comprehending 
unity,  for  it  excludes  all  rational  free  agents.  The  mind  then  recog- 
nizes itself  as  a  rational,  moral  and  free  being,  and  others  like  itself; 
it  forms  unities  of  the  family,  the  tribe,  the  nation,  the  human  race ;  it 
passes  into  philosophy  and  discovers  speculative,  ethical,  aesthetic  and 
teleological  systems.  It  extends  its  thought  also  in  time  and  in  various 
ways  brings  into  unity  the  succession  of  beings  and  energies  through 
immeasurable  periods  of  the  past  and  the  future.  As  the  mind  pushes 
on  in  this  process  it  necessarily  comes  at  last  to  the  problem,  what  is  the 
unity  which  comprehends  all  reality  ?  What  is  the  one  system  in  which 
all  systems  are  included?  How  is  the  all  one?  Neither  empirical  nor 
noetic  science  can  answer  this  question.  It  can  be  answered  by 
theology  alone,  in  the  recognition  of  the  Absolute  Reason,  whose 
eternal  and  archetypal  truths  the  universe  expresses,  and  whose  wise 
and  beneficent  ends  the  universe  in  its  ongoing  is  evermore  realizing. 
In  the  knowledge  of  God  we  comprehend  the  all  in  the  unity  of  one 
rational  system. 

This  effort  to  find  the  unity  of  the  manifold  is  not  accidental  or 
optional;  it  is  a  necessity  of  human  thought;  for  thought  is  nothing 

*  Advancement  of  Learning,  B.  I. 


312  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

else  but  apprehending  a  reality,  distinguishing  it  from  other  reality, 
and  finding  its  unity  with  other  reality  in  some  relation.  All  thought 
by  its  nature,  and  pre-eminently  scientific  thought,  culminates  in  find- 
ing the  unity  of  the  manifold.  All  thinking  necessarily  tends  to  seek 
the  unity  of  the  All.  Accordingly  Comte,  complete  positivist  as  he 
was,  came  upon  this  problem  and  suggested  that  it  may  be  solved 
sometime  by  the  discovery  of  some  one  all-comprehending  law,  under 
which  all  facts  may  be  generalized  in  one  formula,  as  a  multitude  of 
facts  are  now  generalized  under  the  law  of  gravitation.  In  his 
"  Hierarchy  of  the  Sciences,"  he  was  unconsciously  trying  in  another 
direction  to  solve  the  same  problem.  In  every  period  of  active  investi- 
gation in  natural  science,  the  investigators  come  face  to  face  with  the 
problem  and  attempt  some  solution.  They  cannot  avoid  it;  it  is  a 
necessity  of  human  thought.  They  cannot  solve  it  empirically ;  it  can 
be  solved  by  theology  alone. 

V.  Scientific  thought  legitimately  developed  necessarily  culminates 
in  Theology,  and  in  it  alone  finds  the  solution  of  its  own  ultimate  prob- 
lem and  completes  itself  as  science. 

Human  knowledge,  of  course,  can  never  be  complete  as  the  know- 
ledge of  all  that  is.  Remoteness  of  space  and  of  time,  the  complexity 
and  reconditeness  of  what  is  accessible  to  observation  must  always  hide 
much  from  any  finite  mind.  But  to  know  all  that  is  accessible  to  in- 
vestigation respecting  any  object  or  class  of  objects,  theology  is  essen- 
tial. We  have  seen  that  science,  in  its  three  grades,  aims  at  ascer- 
taining what  any  particular  reality  is  in  its  own  factual  and  distinctive 
properties,  and  what  are  its  factual  relations  to  other  realities ;  how 
it  is  related  to  the  truths,  laws,  ideals  and  ends  of  reason  ;  and  how  it 
is  related  to  all  reality  in  the  unity  of  one  all-comprehending  system. 
The  last  of  these  three  questions  of  science  is  the  ultimate  question  of 
reason.  It  is  a  question  which  scientific  thought  fully  developed  neces- 
sarily asks  and  tries  to  answer.  It  is  a  question  which  thoughtful 
men  always  do  meet  and  try  to  answer.  We  have  seen  complete  posi- 
tivists  like  Comte,  as  well  as  more  recent  scientists,  busying  themselves 
with  it  and  trying  to  answer  it  by  widening  natural  laws  or  constructing 
cosmogonies.  Others  have  offered  as  an  answer  Monism,  whether 
Materialistic  or  Pantheistic.  Some  have  tried  to  comprehend  all  reality 
in  unity  by  the  idea  of  substance ;  others  by  the  idea  of  cause.  Others 
have  fallen  into  Dualism  ;  as  in  the  Zendavesta,  Ahriman  is  the  eternal 
principal  of  evil,  symbolized  by  darkness,  and  Ormuzd  is  the  eternal 
principle  of  good,  symbolized  by  light ;  as  in  some  forms  of  Gnosticism, 
matter  is  eternal  and  the  source  of  evil,  and  spirit  eternal  and  the 
source  of  good.  Even  the  Deist  verges  on  dualism,  for  to  him  the 
universe  is  a  machine  and  outside  of  it  is  a  machinist  who  made  it,  but 


LIB/?4 


THREE  GRADES  OF  SCIENTIFIC   KXOWLEPGE.  313 

Who  aside  from  this  is  scarcely  recognized  as  in  unity  with  it  in  any 
way. 

All  these  are  theological  answers  showing  man  busy  through  all 
the  history  of  human  thought  with  this  ultimate  problem  of  human 
reason.  The  only  true  and  satisfactory  solution  is  Theism,  which  finds 
the  unity  of  the  all  in  the  idea  of  the  supreme  Reason  expressing  its 
truths  and  laws,  realizing  its  ideals  and  ends  in  a  rational  system  com- 
prehending all  that  is. 

And  this  gives  us  the  rationale  of  science  itself,  which  in  every  stage 
has  no  other  end  than  to  discover  the  universal  in  the  particular,  the 
necessary  in  the  contingent,  order  and  law  in  the  accidental  and  un- 
regulated, reasonableness  in  the  complexity  and  confusion  of  phenomena, 
in  a  word,  to  find  Reason  in  all  spheres  and  relations  of  the  universe. 
Theism  is  the  doctrine  that  the  universe  is  grounded  in  reason  and 
regulated  by  it,  and  that  it  constitutes,  with  the  Supreme  Reason ' 
whose  thoughts  it  expresses,  whose  laws  it  obeys,  whose  wise  and  bene- 
ficent ends  it  realizes,  one  all-comprehending  rational  system. 

All  scientific  thought  naturally  and  legitimately  issues  in  Theism. 
Empirical  science  is  compelled,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  but  by 
the  inmost  nature  of  thought,  to  become  metaphysical,  and  metaphysi- 
cal science  to  become  theological.  It  is  the  legitimate  and  necessary 
development  of  human  thought.  Thus  the  discoveries  of  science  are 
revelations  of  God ;  they  are  the  discoveries  of  the  action  of  things 
according  to  the  law  of  their  being,  they  are  the  recognition  of  ration- 
ality underlying  phenomena,  of  the  ideas  and  principles  and  laws  of 
reason  as  the  matrices  in  which  all  things  are  cast,  the  archetypes  of 
which  all  things  are  types.  But  if  the  universe  is  thus  pervaded  by 
rationality,  thus  cast  in  the  mold  and  stamped  with  the  mintage  of 
reason,  then  we  are  brought  into  the  presence  of  God  the  supreme 
reason  in  the  very  discoveries  of  empirical  and  philosophical  science. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  silence  and  the  perplexities  of  both  must  be 
carried  over  to  theology  for  explanation.  Alike  their  discoveries  and 
their  perplexities  are  "  steps  up  to  God." 

Comte  insists  that  the  efficient  cause  must  be  excluded  from  scientific 
inquiry,  because,  if  once  admitted,  the  whole  of  theology  must  be  ad- 
mitted with  it.  We  may  go  farther ;  once  admit  the  legitimacy,  in 
any  particular,  of  that  line  of  thought  which  I  have  designated  as 
philosophy,  and  you  must  admit  theology.  And  this  is  only  saying 
that  theology  is  inevitable,  if  it  is  legitimate  to  inquire  for  the  rationale 
or  reasonableness  of  phenomena,  to  ask  whence  they  are  and  for  what 
rational  end  they  exist,  to  study  them  in  the  light  of  the  principles  by 
which  the  true  is  distinguished  from  the  absurd,  in  the  light  of  the  law 
of  right,  the  ideals  of  perfection  and  the  rational  distinction  of  good 


314  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

and  evil.  The  three  grades  of  science,  therefore,  are  interdependent, 
and,  though  distinguishable,  are  inseparable  as  the  parts  of  one  vital 
organic  growth.  In  investigating  we  begin  with  the  seen  and  trace  it 
up  to  the  unseen,  into  which  the  roots  of  all  science  strike  deep  and 
wide.  But  in  the  order  of  dependence  it  is  the  invisible  that  reveals 
itself  in  the  visible,  the  spiritual  in  the  natural.  Far  as  the  tree  of 
knowledge  spreads  its  branches  leafy  and  fruitful  before  our  eyes,  so  far 
it  spreads  its  roots  in  the  unseen.  "  For  the  invisible  things  of  God 
from  the  creation  of  the  world  are  clearly  seen,  being  understood  by 
the  things  that  are  made,  even  his  eternal  power  and  Godhead."  (Rom. 
1 :  20.)  In  the  words  of  I.  H.  Fichte :  "  It  is  now  time  again  to  install 
Theism,  that  inextinguishable  and  fundamental  conviction  of  humanity, 
as  a  science  in  its  true  significance  ;  but  therewith  equally  to  free  it 
from  so  many  obstructions  and  veils  which  long  enough  have  darkened 
'  its  true  light.  Theism  is  neither  an  hypothesis  grubbed  out  by  one- 
sided speculation,  as  some  represent  it ;  nor  is  it  an  invention  of  priest- 
craft nor  of  superstitious  fear,  old  ways  of  representing  it  which  one 
still  unexpectedly  meets.  It  is  also  not  the  mere  confession  of  any  ex- 
clusive school  or  religion.  But  it  is  the  ultimate  solution  of  all  the 
world-problems,  the  unavoidable  goal  of  all  investigation,  silently  effec- 
tive in  that  which  externally  denies  it."* 

VI.  Science  in  each  higher  grade  reacts  to  stimulate  investigation  in 
the  lower.  Without  this  stimulus  from  the  ranges  of  knowledge  opened 
by  the  higher  Reason,  man  would  stagnate  in  savagery.  The  undying 
impulse  to  scientific  investigation  is  not  mere  curiosity  to  know  facts, 
but  it  is  the  longing  to  know  the  origin,  the  ground,  the  law,  the 
rationale  of  facts.  Man  is  moved  to  investigation  not  merely  to  answer 
the  question,  What  is  it?  but  much  more  to  answer  the  questions, 
Whence  ?  How  ?  Why  ?  Wherefore  ?  It  is  not  by  accident  or  contin- 
uous error,  but  by  the  necessities  of  human  thought,  that  in  all  ages 
the  study  of  physical  science  has  issued  in  Cosmogonies,  and  that  to- 
day questions  of  Cosmogony  and  Theology  attract  so  much  attention 
in  connection  with  scientific  investigations.  Prof.  Tyndall  says :  "An 
impulse  inherent  in  primeval  man  turned  his  thoughts  and  questionings 
betimes  towards  the  sources  of  natural  phenomena.  The  same  impulse 
inherited  and  intensified  is  the  spur  of  scientific  action  to-day.  Deter- 
mined by  it,  by  a  process  of  abstraction  from  experience,  we  form 
physical  theories  which  lie  beyond  the  pale  of  experience,  but  which 
satisfy  the  desire  of  the  mind  to  see  every  natural  occurrence  resting 
on  a  cause.  In  forming  their  notion  of  the  origin  of  things,  our  ear- 
liest historic  ....  ancestors  pursued  as  far  as  their  intelligence  per- 

*  Theistische  Weltansicht ;  Vorwort,  S.  ix. 


THREE  GRADES  OF  SCIENTIFIC  KNOWLEDGE.  315 

mitted  the  same  course."*  The  same  has  been  commonly  exemplified 
in  the  history  of  science.  Says  Lange :  "  With  the  exception  of  De- 
mocritus,  scarcely  a  single  one  of  the  great  scientific  inventors  and 
discoverers  of  Greece  and  Rome  belongs  to  any  school  of  Materialists ; 
but  we  find  a  long  series  of  men  most  worthy  of  honor,  who  belonged 
to  schools  of  the  most  opposite  tendency  possible,  idealistic,  formalistic, 
or  even  enthusiastic.  Mathematics  is  especially  to  be  noticed.  Plato, 
the  father  of  an  enthusiasm  sometimes  beautiful  and  of  deep  meaning, 
sometimes  misleading  and  fanatical,  is  still  the  spiritual  father  of  a 
series  of  investigators  who  brought  mathematics  to  the  highest  point 
which  it  attained  in  ancient  times."  After  adducing  various  historical 
exemplifications  of  his  position,  Lange  adds :  "  The  small  part  which 
materialism  has  had  in  stimulating  scientific  investigation  is  not  acci- 
dental, nor  can  it  be  ascribed  to  the  contemplative  quietism  of  Epicu- 
rus ;  but  the  fact  is  that,  in  those  who  achieved  anything  for  the  pro- 
gress of  (physical)  science,  the  ideal  element  was  a  power  in  the  closest 
connection  with  their  discoveries  and  inventions."f  To  the  same  pur- 
port are  the  words  of  Humboldt :  "  In  Plato's  high  appreciation  of 
mathematical  development  of  thought  and  in  Aristotle's  morphological 
views  embracing  all  organisms,  lay  the  germs  of  all  later  advances  of 
physical  science."]; 

This  undying  desire  to  find  the  spiritual  in  nature  is  exemplified  in 
Shelley.  He  was  an  atheist.  He  vauntingly  wrote  his  name  on  the 
rocks  of  the  Alps,  "  Percy  Bysshe  Shelley,  Atheist."  Yet  in  his  letters 
he  says  that  he  loves  to  think  of  a  fine  intellectual  spirit  pervading  the 
universe.  It  is  the  pathetic  cry  of  a  refined  and  cultivated  mind  im- 
prisoned in  the  negations  of  atheism,  yet  unable  to  repress  its  own 
rational  intuitions  and  yearning  to  commune  in  nature  with  a  fine  in- 
tellectual spirit  like  its  own.  It  is  the  delicate  spirit  Ariel,  imprisoned 
by  a  malignant  witch  in  a  cleft  pine,  and  writhing  to  escape  and  soar 
in  its  native  empyrean. 

VII.  The  claim  that  the  empirical  science  of  nature  is  the  only  and 
exclusive  science,  contradicts  the  constitution  of  the  human  mind,  the 
essential  nature  of  human  thought,  and  its  entire  history.  This  is  an 
inference  from  the  foregoing  discussion.  I  have  already  alluded  to 
this  claim.  From  the  position  which  we  have  now  attained,  we  also 
see  that  empirical  science,  far  from  being  justified  in  this  claim,  cannot 
exist  as  science  by  itself  exclusive  of  science  in  the  higher  grades ;  but 
that  the  three  grades,  distinguishable  but  inseparable,  are  all  essential 
to  the  completion  of  scientific  thought  on  any  object  of  investigation. 

*  Address  before  British  Association,  Belfast,  1S74  :  Sub  initio. 

f  Geschichte  des  Materialismus.     Vol.  I.,  pp.  92,  93.     Book  I.,  Section  I.,  Chap.  iv. 

J  Cosmos,  Otte's  Transl.    Vol.  II.,  p.  176. 


316  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

Prof.  Lotze  says :  "  The  world  is  certainly  not  so  constituted  that  the 
individual  fundamental  truths  which  we  find  dominating  in  it  hang 
together  according  to  the  poor  pattern  of  a  logical  superordination, 
co-ordination,  and  subordination.  They  form  rather  a  texture  so  woven 
that  they  are  all  at  the  same  time  present  in  every  bit  and  fold  of  it. 
You  can,  according  to  the  need  you  feel,  make  every  one  of  these 
threads  the  chief  subject  of  your  consideration ;  but  you  cannot  do  this 
at  all,  or  at  least  you  cannot  do  it  in  a  useful  way,  without  taking 
account  at  every  instant  of  the  other  threads  with  which  it  is  indis- 
solubly  united."  * 

The  incompleteness  and  lack  of  significance  of  the  empirical  science 
of  nature  when  isolated  from  science  in  a  higher  grade  may  be  illus- 
trated by  the  study  of  a  book.  We  would  study  Homer's  Iliad.  The 
first  step  must  be  to  learn  the  letters  and  the  order  of  their  grouping 
in  words.  We  accordingly  proceed  to  examine  them  with  scientific 
accuracy;  we  arrange  them  in  classes  according  to  resemblances,  and 
observe  various  uniform  sequences  of  them  in  words.  This  is  the  em- 
pirical science  of  the  phenomena  presented  in  the  book.  But  after  all 
this  study  we  know  only  the  phenomena  of  the  book  in  their  classes 
and  uniform  sequences ;  that  is,  the  letters  and  the  words.  We  do  not 
understand  the  book  till  we  discover  the  thought  which  these  letters 
and  words  express,  and  comprehend  the  whole  in  its  unity  and  design 
as  an  epic  poem.  This  part  of  our  study  is  analogous  to  philosophy. 
But  when  we  read  the  Iliad  we  know  that  it  expresses  the  thought  of 

-IT  O 

an  intelligent  being  who  was  its  author.  This  corresponds  to  theology. 
The  study  of  the  letters  and  their  arrangement  in  words  is  the  first  de- 
partment of  knowledge  respecting  the  book,  indispensable  to  any  know- 
ledge of  it.  But  it  would  be  preposterous  to  say  that  this  is  the  com- 
plete and  only  knowledge  of  the  poem.  So  in  the  study  of  nature,  the 
observation,  classification  and  co-ordination  of  phenomena,  which  we 
call  empirical  science,  is  only  the  learning  of  the  letters,  classifying 
them  as  in  a  case  of  type  by  resemblance,  and  co-ordinating  them  in 
words.  But  this  no  more  gives  a  real  knowledge  of  nature  than  the 
knowledge  of  the  letters  and  of  spelling  gives  a  complete  knowledge 
of  Homer's  Iliad.  So  difficult  is  the  task  of  learning  to  read  that  we 
do  not  wonder  that  the  attention  of  children  is  wholly  occupied  with 
the  letters  and  words,  and  that  they  at  first  read  mechanically  without 
taking  the  sense.  And  so  vast  is  the  book  of  nature  and  so  laborious 
the  process  of  learning  to  read  it,  it  is  not  wonderful  that  its  students 
should  stick  for  a  time  in  the  letter  and  read  mechanically  without 

*  Philosophy  of  the  last  forty  years,  by  Prof.  Lotze:  Contemporary  Review,  Jan. 
1880. 


THREE  GRADES  OF  SCIENTIFIC  KNOWLEDGE.  317 

taking  the  sense.  But  maturer  knowledge  and  further  intellectual 
growth  will  take  them  beyond  this  childishness,  and  make  them,  not 
merely  observers,  but  also  interpreters  of  nature. 

I  will  give  another  illustration.  Science  teaches  that  all  thinking, 
volition  and  emotion  involve  molecular  action  of  the  brain.  Suppose 
some  instrument  invented  by  which  you  can  look  through  the  skull  and 
observe  this  molecular  action.  You  find  some  Shakespeare  composing 
Macbeth,  some  Newton  writing  the  Principia,  some  Paul  glowing  with 
self-sacrificing  love ;  and  in  each  case  you  make  an  exact  chart  of  the 
course  or  orbit  of  every  moving  molecule.  You  have  an  exact  deline- 
ation of  the  action  of  the  brain ;  but  it  bears  not  the  remotest  resem- 
blance to  the  thoughts  and  feelings  expressed  by  it,  to  the  imaginative 
creation  of  Macbeth,  the  mathematical  demonstrations  of  the  Principia, 
the  self-sacrificing  love  of  Paul.  You  have  observed  the  phenomena, 
you  have  totally  missed  their  significance.  Suppose,  now,  an  infini- 
tesimal inhabitant  of  the  brain,  to  whom  the  brain  is  the  whole  known 
universe  and  to  whom  the  motions  of  its  molecules  are  relatively  as  great 
as  to  us  the  motions  of  the  planets.  Suppose  this  infinitesimal  being 
provides  himself  with  telescope  and  microscope  and  observes  all  these 
motions  of  the  molecules,  classifies  them  by  resemblance,  and  co- 
ordinates them  in  their  uniform  sequences.  Now  he  claims  that  he 
has  created  a  science  of  the  universe — this  brain  which  he  lives  in 
being  to  him  the  universe — and  yet  he  entirely  misses  the  thought,  the 
volition,  the  emotions  expressed  in  these  movements,  and  has  no  know- 
ledge of  the  intelligent  being  whose  thought,  volition  and  emotion  the 
action  of  the  brain  expresses.  How  plain  it  is  that  this  infinitesimal 
being  deludes  himself  with  the  mere  show  of  knowledge  while  he  misses 
its  deepest  reality.  And  yet  it  is  no  more  a  mere  show  without  reality 
than  is  the  science  of  the  natural  universe  which  confines  itself  to  the 
resemblances  and  sequences  of  phenomena,  with  no  apprehension  of  the 
thought  which  the  phenomena  express,  or  of  the  supreme  intelligence 
in  which  they  originate,  or  the  rational  system  in  which  they  exist. 

Ludwig  Xoire,  speaking  of  Biichner's  materialism,  compares  it  to  a 
child's  description  of  music,  who  describes  it  as  the  action  of  the  player 
putting  his  hand  on  the  keys,  moving  them  up  and  down,  and  crossing 
his  arms,  but  leaves  out  the  music.* 

VIII.  Another  inference  from  the  foregoing  discussion  is  that  science 
in  the  three  grades  must  be  in  harmony  with  itself.  These  three  grades 
of  scientific  thought  are  but  the  different  processes  of  intelligence,  each 
necessary  to  the  other,  all  necessary  to  complete  intelligence.  When 
they  are  rightly  apprehended  conflict  is  impossible. 

•  Die  Welt  als  Entwickelung  des  Geistes :  as.,  18,  19. 


318  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

We  have,  therefore,  rational  ground  of  certainty  that  the  progress 
of  empirical  and  noetic  science  can  never  conflict  with  theology  nor 
invalidate  it.  And  it  is  equally  certain  that  the  true  scientific  spirit  is 
never  hostile  to  the  truly  religious  spirit  which  rules  all  right  theologi- 
cal inquiry.  Scientists  continually  insist  on  the  "searching,  open, 
humble  mind  ; "  and  Jesus  said :  "  Except  ye  become  as  little  children, 
ye  shall  not  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven."  The  obscuration  of 
religious  belief  does  not  result  from  science,  but  from  the  incomplete- 
ness or  perversion  of  science.  We  have  reasonable  ground  of  assur- 
ance that  any  such  obscuration  attendant  on  the  scientific  study  of 
nature  must  be  temporary,  and  the  ultimate  and  abiding  issue  of 
scientific  investigation  and  progress  must  be  in  the  future,  as  it  has 
always  been  in  the  past,  to  confirm  man's  belief  in  God,  and  to  purify, 
illuminate  and  enlarge  the  knowledge  of  Him.  Frau  von  Marenholz- 
Biilow  relates  the  following :  "  Froebel  said,  '  Let  the  empirics  work  in 
their  quarries ;  they  will  bring  treasures  to  light  which  are  also  neces- 
sary/ '  It  appears  to  me,'  said  I,  '  that  the  investigators  of  nature,  who 
work  in  the  dark  mines  of  the  material  world  by  the  light  of  their  own 
lanterns  and  imagine  that  there  is  nothing  brighter,  no  sunlight, 
must  sometime  or  other  break  through  the  surface  above,  when  they  can 
no  longer  deny  the  brighter  light  of  the  sun.'  "* 

Mr.  Lewes,  in  the  opening  of  the  "  Problems  of  Life  and  Mind," 
says :  "  Some  considerable  thinkers  ....  argue  that  religion  has 
played  its  part  in  the  evolution  of  humanity — a  noble  part,  yet  only 
that  of  a  provisional  o"rgan,  which  in  the  course  of  development  must 
be  displaced  by  a  final  organ.  Other  thinkers,  and  I  follow  these, 
consider  that  religion  will  continue  to  regulate  the  evolution  ;  but  that 
to  do  this  in  the  coming  ages,  it  must  occupy  a  position  similar  to  the 
one  it  occupied  in  the  past,  and  express  the  highest  thought  of  the 
time,  as  that  thought  widens  with  the  ever-growing  experience."  I 
accept  this  demand  on  theology  as  reasonable,  though  I  differ  from 
Mr.  Lewes  as  to  what  complete  compliance  with  the  demand  implies. 
However  far  empirical  and  rationalistic  science  may  advance,  true 
theology  must  still  be  competent  to  maintain  its  position  as  the  Science 
of  sciences  and  the  Philosophy  of  philosophies.  It  must  be  competent 
to  take  all  the  results  of  the  highest  thought  and  integrate,  interpret 
and  vindicate  them  in  a  rational  system.  However  far  science  may 
advance,  it  can  never  transcend  Theism,  which  recognizes  perfect 
Reason  as  the  ultimate  ground  of  the  universe,  and  its  truths,  laws, 
ideals  and  ends  as  the  archetypes  which  the  universe  is  progressively 
expressing.  Man  cannot  overleap  reason  any  more  than  he  can  over- 

*  Reminiscences  of  Froebel,  p.  267. 


THKEE  GRADES  OF  SCIENTIFIC  KNOWLEDGE.  319 

leap  the  zenith  of  the  firmament ;  for  reason  is  man's  intellectual 
firmament,  the  everlasting  sunlight  which  lies  about  him ;  and  yet 
he  carries  it  with  him,  and  is  always  beneath  its  zenith  wherever  he 
goes.  Science  by  no  advancement  can  set  aside  the  supremacy  and 
universality  of  reason ;  for  it  would  set  aside  the  godlike  power  of  man 
which  makes  science  possible,  and  annul  its  own  essence  and  calling  as 
science ;  for  science  consists  essentially  in  finding  the  product  and  ex- 
'ii  of  reason  in  all  that  is.  Theism  therefore  gives  the  grand 
reality  by  which  theology  is  competent  to  integrate,  interpret  and  ac- 
count for  all  things  under  any  possible  progress  of  science.  The  pro- 
•f  reason  can  never  transcend  reason.  The  progress  of  science 
may  purify,  elucidate  and  enlarge  theoretical  knowledge,  but  it  can 
never  annul  the  Theism  of  which  true  theology  in  its  remotest  ramifi- 
cations of  doctrine  is  the  exposition. 

I  accept,  therefore,  the  words  of  President  Eliot  of  Harvard  Univer- 
sity, though  perhaps  giving  a  meaning  different  from  his  own  to  his 
expressions :  "  Science  has  thus  exalted  the  idea  of  God,  the  greatest 
service  which  can  be  rendered  to  humanity.  Each  age  must  worship 
its  own  thought  of  God,  and  each  age  may  be  judged  by  the  worthiness 
of  that  thought.  In  displaying  the  uniform  continuous  action  of  un- 
repenting  nature  in  its  march  from  good  to  better,  science  has  inevita- 
bly directed  the  attention  of  men  to  the  most  glorious  attributes  of 
that  divine  intelligence  which  acts  through  nature  with  the  patience 
of  eternity  and  the  fixity  of  all-foreseeing  wisdom.  A  hundred  life- 
times ago  a  Hebrew  Seer  gave  utterance  to  one  of  the  grandest  thoughts 
that  ever  mind  of  man  conceived.  .  .  .  This  thought,  tender  and 
consoling  toward  human  weakness  and  insignificance  as  a  mother's 
embrace,  but  sublime  also  as  the  starry  heights  and  majestic  as  the 
outward  sweep  of  the  ages,  science  utters  as  the  sum  of  all  its  teaching, 
the  sublime  result  of  all  its  searching  and  its  meditations,  and  ap- 
plies alike  to  the  whole  universe  and  to  its  last  atom :  '  The  eternal 
God  is  thy  refuge  and  underneath  are  the  everlasting  arms.' "  * 

\  61.    The  alleged  Conflict  of  Natural  Science  and 
Theology. 

I.  Conflict  between  natural  science  and  theology  can  arise  only  from 
error  or  incompleteness  of  knowledge  on  the  one  side  or  the  other.  A 
true  and  complete  science  of  nature  can  never  be  in  conflict  with  true 
and  complete  theology.  Students  of  natural  science  do  no  violence  to 
science  in  remaining  theists  or  Christians,  as  multitudes  of  them  have 
done.  Religious  unbelief  does  not  spring  from  science  but  from  ig- 

*  Report  of  Speech  at  the  opening  of  the  Am.  Museum  of  Natural  History. 


320  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

norance  or  error  either  in  respect  to  science  or  theology.  We  do  both 
natural  science  and  theology  great  injustice  in  using  language  which 
implies  that  physical  science  is,  of  itself  as  science,  in  conflict  with 
theology,  or  that  theology  is  in  conflict  with  it,  or  that  as  theologians 
we  need  to  be  afraid  of  its  discoveries  or  in  an  attitude  of  opposition 
to  its  progress.  Empirical  science  declares  the  particular  realities  of 
the  universe  and  their  factual  relations  and  laws ;  and  it  is  impossible 
that  the  true  science  of  the  facts  and  laws  of  the  universe  can  be  in 
conflict  with  the  true  science  of  the  God  of  the  universe. 

1.  Conflict  may  arise  from  the  incompleteness  of  knowledge  inci- 
dental  to   its   progressiveness.     Thought  proceeds  from  apprehension 
through  differentiation  to  unification,  from  thesis  through  antithesis  to 
synthesis.     Thought,  therefore,  at  a  certain   stage  of  its  progress  is 
necessarily  occupied  with  differences,  opposites  and  antitheses.     If  it 
stops  there  it  will  mistake  these  for  contraries  or  contradictories  ;  but 
if  it  push  on  to  its  completeness  it  may  see  that  they  are  merely  comple- 
mental  aspects  of  the  same  reality,  or  different  particulars  related  and 
harmonious  in  a  larger  unity.     This  liability  to  mistake  is  incidental  to 
the  progress  of  knowledge  within  the   sphere  of  empirical    science; 
and  we  cannot  escape  the  same  liability  in  the  transition  from  empi- 
rical to  philosophical  and  theological  knowledge.     But  in  fact  these 
seeming  contradictions  may  be  only  the  contrasts  necessary  to  a  com- 
plete and  full-orbed  knowledge. 

Incompleteness  of  knowledge  is  also  incidental  to  the  specialties  to 
which  students  are  shut  up  by  the  vastness  of  the  sphere  of  knowledge 
and  the  limits  of  the  human  mind.  Whe*n  one  devotes  himself  exclu- 
sively to  the  empirical  study  of  nature,  the  world  of  matter  heaves 
its  hulk  up  between  him  and  the  spiritual  light,  as  the  earth  on  which 
we  dwell  comes  between  us  and  the  sun  and  shrouds  us  in  night.  And 
such  is  now  the  extent  of  natural  science  that  one  must  devote  a  life- 
time to  master  a  subdivision  of  a  particular  science.  And  this  limita- 
tion of  the  sphere  of  life-long  studies  unfits  for  comprehending  the 
larger  unities  of  philosophy  and  theology. 

Conflict  may  also  arise  from  positive  errors  as  to  particular  realities 
on  the  one  side  or  the  other.  These  are  errors  of  observation  or  infer- 
ence which  further  investigation  will  correct ;  and  the  correction  of  the 
error  ends  the  conflict. 

2.  Conflict  may  arise  from  an  error  of  method ;   from  overlooking 
the  distinction  of  empirical,  noetic  and  theological  science.     Empirical 
science  may  intrude  into  the  sphere  of  philosophy  and  attempt  to  decide 
philosophical  and  theological  questions  by  empirical  methods.     So  La- 
place argued  that   there  is  no  God  because  he  had  never  found  him 
with  the  telescope ;  and  as  it  has  been  argued  that  there  is  no  spirit  in 


THREE  GRADES  OF  SCIENTIFIC  KNOWLEDGE.  321 

man,  because  the  anatomist  has  never  discovered  it.  On  the  other 
hand,  theology  has  intruded  into  the  sphere  of  natural  science  and 
attempted  to  settle  questions  of  fact  which  can  be  determined  only  by 
empirical  observation  and  inference. 

3.  Conflict  may  arise  from  the  claim  of  science  in  one  grade  to  be  the 
whole  of  human  science,  to  the  exclusion  of  all  other. 

I  am  not  aware  that  philosophy  or  theology  ever  made  this  claim ; 
though  they  have  often  fallen  into  error  by  not  sufficiently  recognizing 
their  dependence  on  empirical  science  for  their  factual  contents.  But 
the  empirical  science  of  nature  has  again  and  again  asserted  its  claim 
to  the  whole  of  human  knowledge.  And  it  is  this  claim,  persistently 
and  widely  made  now,  which  is  the  source  of  the  present  antagonism  of 
some  students  of  natural  science  against  theology. 

II.  The  reconciliation  can  be  effected  only  by  the  advancement  of 
science  in  each  grade  to  completeness  by  the  progressive  discovery  of 
truth  and  elimination  of  error. 

1.  The   claim  that  empirical  natural  science  includes  all  science, 
involves  complete  atheism  and  is  entirely  irreconcilable  with  theology. 
It  denies  that  man  is  capable  either  of  psychological,  philosophical  or 
theological  knowledge.     If  man  is  incapable  of  knowledge  that  trans- 
cends the  empirical,  he  is  incapable  of  knowing  God.     With  those  who 
make  this  claim  there  is  no  propriety  in  discussing  the  question  of  the 
existence  of  God.     Their  false  theory  of  knowledge  shuts  us  out  from 
approaching  that  questicp.     The  question  with  them  is  as  to  the  reality 
of  human   knowledge.     We  demonstrate  from   the   constitution   and 
history  of  man  that  he  is  capable  of  noetic  and  theological  knowledge, 
and  that  the  denial  of  this  involves  equally  the  denial  of  all  human 
knowledge.     All  atheism  rests  on  principles  which  necessarily  involve 
complete  agnosticism.      If  man  cannot  know  God,  he  cannot  know 
anything. 

2.  Students   of  physical  science   often    assert   that   its   method   is 
entirely  different  from  the  method  of  metaphysics  and  theology ;  and 
that  therefore  conflict  is  inevitable   and  irreconcilable.      In  seeking 
reconciliation  on  this  point  we  must  inquire  what  the  true  method  is 
and  wherein  on  either  side  there  is  a  deviation  from  it.     The  true 
method  will  accord  with  the  law  that  knowledge  must  pass  through  the 
three  grades  which  I  have  elucidated.     The  difference  of  method  has 
originated  in  the  fact  that  physical  science  has  tried  to  limit  itself 
within  pure  empiricism,  while  philosophy  and  theology  have  sometimes 
tried  to  proceed  by  a  priori  principles  and  abstract  notions  without 
seeking  their  basis  in  observed  facts  of  experience.     So  far  as  on  either 
side  investigation  has  been  thus  partial,  it  must  be  corrected  and  broad- 
ened.    On  each  side  we  already  see  this  process  far  advanced.     Comte 

21 


322  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

made  the  attempt  rigorously  to  isolate  science  within  empirical  know- 
ledge through  the  senses.  But  it  has  been  found  impossible  to  carry  it 
forwards  in  this  isolation.  We  find  that  physical  science  is  now  carried 
through  the  three  grades  of  empirical,  noetic  and  theological  thought. 
Admitting  the  reality  of  the  self-evident,  unproved  knowledge  given  in 
sense  perception,  scientists  accept  as  real  various  metaphysical  ideas, 
such  as  matter,  force,  cause,  atoms,  ethers ;  they  acknowledge  the  first 
principles  of  reason  to  be  a  priori  to  the  individual  and  regulative  of  all 
thought.  The  agnostics  acknowledge  the  existence  of  the  Absolute 
Being,  though  unknowable,  without  which  it  is  impossible  to  find  the 
unity  of  the  cosmos  or  to  believe  the  real  existence  of  anything ;  mate- 
rialistic scientists  hold  a  doctrine  which  implies  that  matter  is  the 
Absolute  Being ;  and  here  they  both  pass  over  into  theological  thought. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  theist,  starting  with  not  only  sensible,  but  also 
mental  and  spiritual  reality  observed  in  experience,  and  reasoning 
according  to  the  same  rational  principles,  attains  the  knowledge  of  the 
Absolute,  not  merely  as  an  unknowable,  but  as  the  absolute  Reason. 
So  far  then  we  already  find  agreement  of  method,  and  the  old  objection, 
that  philosophy  and  theology  are  empty  speculations  not  founded  on 
observed  facts,  disappears.  The  difference  now  is  simply  that  the  theist 
accepts  all  the  facts  of  experience,  while  the  agnostic  takes  cognizance 
of  only  a  part  of  them ;  the  method  is  essentially  the  same ;  the  differ- 
ence is  in  the  reality  investigated,  the  agnostic  disregarding  one  hemi- 
sphere of  man's  being  and  all  the  spiritual  ^iniverse  which  gives  its 
significance  to  the  material  universe  and  makes  a  scientific  knowledge 
of  it  possible.  At  present  the  conflict  arises  not  so  much  from  differ- 
ence of  method  as  from  the  endeavor  to  isolate  knowledge  within  the 
limits  of  the  phenomena  of  sense.  Here,  however,  is  developed  an 
antagonism  of  physical  science  not  merely  to  theology,  but  also  to 
philosophy,  and  to  the  study  of  language,  literature,  politics,  history, 
and  all  study  of  man  other  than  physical  and  physiological.  Learning, 
erudition  and  researches  in  great  libraries  are  stigmatized  as  idle 
activities  and  contrasted  with  the  solid  and  practical  value  of  physical 
and  physiological  studies.  This  isolation  and  superficiality  in  the 
intellectual  sphere  extends  to  the  moral.  A  tendency  is  already  appa- 
rent to  paralyze  the  powerful  motives  of  action  in  man's  spiritual  and 
moral  constitution,  to  dry  up  the  deepest  and  richest  springs  of  motive 
and  emotion  and  of  interest  in  life,  and  to  sneer  at  the  treatment  of 
practical  questions  from  the  purely  moral  point  of  view  as  sentimen- 
talism.  If  continued,  it  must  be  antagonistic  to  the  richest  and  most 
inspiring  creations  of  the  imagination  in  fiction,  poetry  and  art.  These 
must  come  then  from  beneath  nature,  not  from  above  it ;  they  must  be 
realistic  and  sensuous,  holding  man  down  beneath  nature,  not  the 


THREE  GRADES  OF  SCIENTIFIC  KNOWLEDGE.  323 

nion  and  ideals  of  reason  lifting  him  above  it.  A  merely 
sensuous  poetry  and  art  must  be  the  result,  which  Walt  Whitman  and 
Swinburne  in  poetry  and  Gautier  in  fiction  already  foreshadow. 

It  is  also  the  boast  of  physical  science  that  it  is  intensely  practical ; 
that  the  knowledge  which  it  imparts  is  especially  useful  to  mankind. 
Comte  goes  so  far  as  to  say  that  the  stellar  astronomy,  such  as  the  inves- 
tigation of  the  binary  stars,  ought  not  to  be  studied  because  it  is  not 
available  for  practical  use.  In  this  respect  our  modern  illuminism  is 
-istent  with  itself;  for  it  holds  it  to  be  necessary  to  a  candid  seek- 
in.:  of  the  truth,  to  disregard  its  bearing  on  the  interests  of  life. 
Christianity  agrees  with  physical  science  in  its  estimate  of  the  practical 
value  of  knowledge.  It  is  also  consistent  with  itself  and  with  ail  sound 
philosophy  in  teaching  that  knowledge,  dissociated  from  its  bearing  on 
the  conduct  of  life  and  on  the  welfare  of  man,  is  even  as  knowledge 
incomplete  and  misleading.  It  warns  us  against  resting  in  a  merely 
speculative  belief,  as  knowledge  which  puffeth  up.  It  inculcates  not 
knowledge  merely,  but  wisdom,  which  is  knowledge  warmed  and  vital- 
ized with  love,  or  love  illumined  with  knowledge ;  wisdom  which  seeks 
the  best  ends  by  the  best  means.  The  practical  ends  of  the  skeptical 
scientist  are,  like  his  knowledge,  limited  within  the  sensuous ;  his  highest 
conception  of  the  good  is  necessarily  Hedonistic ;  his  useful  knowledge 
must  be  of  the  Gradgrind  sort.  But  Christian  theism  aims  through 
knowledge  to  develop  the  spiritual  life  in  its  relation  to  God  and  the 
whole  moral  and  spiritual  realm.  It  strikes  the  noblest  and  most  pow- 
ernil  motives ;  it  opens  the  deepest  and  purest  and  inexhaustible  foun- 
tains of  interest  in  life ;  it  illuminates  the  life  of  sense  with  the  light  of 
the  spirit,  and  dignifies  material  interests  by  showing  their  relation  to 
the  divine.  The  natural  sciences  therefore  have  no  exclusive  or  pre- 
eminent claim  to  be  useful  knowledge,  or  to  be  the  exclusive  or  even 
the  pre-eminent  studies  in  a  college.  On  the  ground  of  utility  alone  I 
claim  the  higher  place  for  the  study  of  man  himself;  not  merely  human 
physiology,  but  those  studies  fitly  called  "the  humanities:" — the  lan- 
guages, literatures  and  religions  of  the  world ;  the  great  courses  of 
human  thought ;  the  .questions  which  have  occupied  the  human  mind  ; 
the  products  of  genius ;  the  progress  and  characteristics  of  civilization  ; 
the  conditions  and  laws  of  individual  action  and  of  the  constitution  and 
welfare  of  society ;  and  all  that  belongs  to  the  history  of  man.  Herbert 
Spencer  objects  that  the  dead  facts  of  history  are  useless.  I  reply  that 
all  facts  are  dead  and  useless,  except  as  their  significance  is  seen  through 
their  relation  to  some  principle,  law  or  end.  This  is  no  more  true  of 
the  facts  of  human  than  of  natural  history.  A  dead  man  is  no  more 
dead  than  a  dead  dog.  If  we  must  compare  the  value  of  mere  facts, 
why  is  not  the  knowledge  that  Cresar  crossed  the  Rubicon  as  useful  as 


324  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

the  knowledge  of  the  average  weight  of  the  human  brain  ?  Why  is  not 
the  knowledge  of  the  migrations  of  men  and  the  founding  of  empires  as 
useful  as  the  knowledge  of  the  movements  of  glaciers  in  a  distant  geo- 
logical epoch  ?  Why  are  we  not  as  much  benefited  by  knowing  the 
names  of  Aristides  and  Socrates  as  by  learning  to  call  a  certain  mollusk 
no  longer  a  clam,  but  a  Mya  Arenaria  f  Why  is  it  more  useful  to  men 
to  spend  weeks  in  hatching  crabs'  eggs  than  to  spend  the  time  in  study- 
ing the  philosophy  of  Plato  or  Aristotle  ?  I  accept  the  test  of  utility. 
I  agree  with  Milton : 

"  That  not  to  know  at  large  of  things  remote  " 
From  use,  obscure  and  subtle ;  but  to  know 
That  which  before  us  lies  in  daily  life, 
Is  the  prime  wisdom." 

Yet  even  so  the  utility  which  consists  in  satisfying  the  animal  wants 
is  subordinate  to  a  higher  utility  in  developing,  cultivating  and  ennobling 
the  whole  man,  intellectually,  morally,  aesthetically  and  spiritually,  as 
well  as  physically. 

The  tendencies  of  which  I  have  spoken  are  not  inherent  in  physical 
science  nor  in  the  scientific  method  which  is  essentially  the  same  in 
every  sphere  of  knowledge,  but  are  due  to  the  unscientific  exclusion  of 
the  whole  sphere  of  spiritual  reality  from  scientific  recognition — an 
exclusion  which  results  entirely  from  materialistic  theologizing.  The 
assertion  that  this  exclusion  belongs  essentially  to  the  scientific  method 
is  entirely  without  reason. 

3.  When  conflict  between  theology  and  natural  science  arises  from 
incomplete  knowledge  or  from  error  respecting  facts,  reconciliation  is 
possible  by  further  investigation.  If  we  encounter  a  difficulty  of  this 
sort  which  we  cannot  remove,  the  reasonable  course  which  scientific 
thought  itself  demands,  is  to  hang  it  up,  in  the  confidence  that  in  the 
progress  of  knowledge  and  of  mental  growth,  the  difficulty  will  be 
removed  and  the  harmony  of  natural  science  and  theology  in  that 
particular  made  plain.  In  conflicts  thus  arising  and  thus  treated, 
empirical,  noetic  and  theological  science  reciprocally  correct  and  com- 
plete each  other,  the  distinction  of  the  three  is  more  correctly  appre«- 
ciated,  and  the  demarcation  of  their  respective  limits  more  exactly 
determined  and  more  scrupulously  observed.  The  reconciliation  has 
often  been  attained  by  discovering  the  errors  of  physical  science.  In 
the  classic  Walpurgis  night  in  the  second  part  of  Faust,  Goethe  has 
introduced  Thales  and  Anaxagoras  apparently  for  no  reason  but  to 
give  him  opportunity  to  ridicule  the  Huttonian  or  Vulcanian  Theory 
of  geology.  When  the  Wernerian  Theory  was  in  vogue  and  marine 
fossils  were  supposed  to  have  been  deposited  from  the  flood,  it  was  a 


THREE  GRADES  OF  SCIENTIFIC  KNOWLEDGE.  325 

commoD  objection  that  no  fossil  remains  of  man  had  ever  been  found 
in  Asia.  I  remember  that  when  in  college  I  heard  a  lecture  from  the 
president  elaborately  answering  this  objection  and  expressing  his 
confidence  that  so  soon  as  researches  should  be  made  in  Asia,  human 
fossils  would  be  found.  In  other  cases  the  reconciliation  has  been 
found  by  recognizing  the  error  of  some  theological  tenet.  For  though 
no  enlargement  of  science  can  set  aside  the  essential  elements  of 
theism,  yet  new  discoveries  in  science  may  require  a  readjustment  of 
some  of  the  tenets  of  theology  in  accordance  with  them.  This  has 
often  been  exemplified.  When  Dr.  Francesco  Redi,  over  two  hun- 
dred years  ago,  announced  that  organic  life  does  not  originate  by 
spontaneous  generation,  Italian  theologians  cried  out  against  it  as  con- 
trary to  the  Scripture ;  for  did  not  the  carcass  of  Samson's  lion  gene- 
rate bees?  In  the  eighth  century,  Virgilius,  Bishop  of  Salzburg,  in 
Bavaria,  was  threatened  with  excommunication  for  teaching  the  exist- 
ence of  antipodes.  Zachary,  the  pope,  wrote  to  Bishop  Boniface  re- 
specting him :  "As  to  the  perverse  and  wicked  doctrine  which  against 
God  and  his  own  soul  he  has  advanced,  if  it  shall  be  ascertained 
that  he  declares  that  there  is  another  world  and  other  inhabitants 
beneath  the  earth,  then  call  a  council,  deprive  him  of  his  sacerdotal 
honor,  and  excommunicate  him  from  the  church."  If  theology  in- 
trudes into  the  sphere  of  empirical  science,  if  it  decides  that  the  earth 
stands  on  a  tortoise,  or  is  the  centre  around  which  the  sun  and  stars 
revolve  daily,  or  that  there  are  no  antipodes,  or  that  organic  life  is 
produced  by  spontaneous  generation,  it  must,  with  the  progress  of  know- 
ledge, retreat  from  its  false  position  and  accept  facts  as  they  are 
empirically  ascertained.  Equally  must  empirical  science  retreat  from 
its  usurped  position  when  it  attempts  by  empirical  methods  to  construct 
cosmogonies  which  leave  no  place  for  God.  Says  Dr.  Carpenter: 
"The  science  of  modern  times  has  taken  a  more  special  direction. 
Fixing  its  attention  exclusively  on  the  order  of  nature,  it  has  sepa- 
rated itself  wholly  from  theology,  whose  function  is  to  seek  its  cause. 
In  this  (physical)  science  is  fully  justified,  alike  by  the  entire  inde- 
pendence of  its  objects,  and  by  the  historical  fact  that  it  has  been 
continually  hampered  and  impeded  in  its  search  after  truth  as  it  is 
in  nature,  by  the  restraints  which  theologians  have  attempted  to  im- 
pose on  its  inquiries.  But  when  (physical)  science,  passing  beyond  its 
own  limits,  assumes  to  take  the  place  of  theology,  and  sets  up  its  own 
conceptions  of  the  order  of  nature  as  a  sufficient  account  of  its  cause, 
it  is  invading  a  province  of  thought  to  which  it  has  no  claim,  and  not 
unreasonably  provokes  the  hostility  of  those  who  ought  to  be  its  best 
friends."* 

*  Address  before  British  Association :  1872. 


326  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

On  this  point  Lord  Bacon  says :  "  We  do  not  by  the  contemplation 
of  nature  presume  to  attain  to  the  mysteries  of  God.  ...  If  any  man 
thinks,  by  view  and  inquiry  into  these  sensible  and  material  things, 
to  attain  that  light  whereby  he  may  reveal  unto  himself  the  nature  or 
will  of  God,  then  indeed  is  he  spoiled  by  vain  philosophy ;  for  the  con- 
templation of  God's  creatures  and  works  produceth  (having  regard  to 
the  works  and  creatures  themselves)  knowledge ;  but  having  regard  to 
God,  no  perfect  knowledge,  but  wonder,  which  is  broken  knowledge. 
And  therefore  it  was  most  aptly  said  by  one  of  Plato's  school,  '  the 
sense  of  man  carrieth  a  resemblance  to  the  sun,  which  as  we  see  openeth 
and  revealeth  all  the  terrestrial  globe;  but  then  again  it  obscureth 
and  covereth  the  stars  and  the  celestial  worlds ;  so  doth  the  sense  dis- 
cover natural  things,  but  it  darkeneth  and  shutteth  up  the  divine.' 
And  hence  it  hath  come  to  pass  that  divers  great  learned  men  have 
been  heretical,  while  they  have  sought  to  fly  up  to  the  secrets  of  the 
Deity  by  the  waxen  wings  of  the  senses."* 

Hence  the  reconciliation  of  any  conflict  of  natural  science  and 
theology  must  come  from  patient  and  earnest  study  of  both,  and  the 
progress  of  knowledge  and  the  mental  growth  thus  attained.  So 
Lord  Bacon  says :  "  Philosophia  obiter  libata  abducit  a  Deo ;  penitus 
hausta  reducit  ad  eundem."  "As  to  the  conceit  that  too  much  know- 
ledge should  incline  a  man  to  atheism  ....  it  is  an  assured  truth 
and  conclusion  of  experience  that  a  little  or  superficial  knowledge  of 
philosophy  may  incline  the  mind  of  man  to  atheism,  but  a  farther  pro- 
ceeding therein  doth  bring  the  mind  back  again  to  religion."  f 

III.  The  alleged  historical  antagonism  of  theology  to  the  progress 
of  science  is  grossly  exaggerated. 

1.  The  majority  of  those  who  are  memorable  in  the  history  of 
physical  science  as  having  contributed  to  its  advancement,  have  held 
theological  beliefs  with  no  consciousness  of  their  incompatibility  with 
physical  science.  Even  in  Greece  and  Rome  the  progress  of  physical 
science  owed  little  to  materialism,  but  was  chiefly  indebted  to  meta- 
physicians and  believers  in  religion,  some  of  whom,  like  Plato  and  Aris- 
totle, had  attained  more  or  less  clearly  to  Monotheism.  Dr.  Draper 
eulogizes  the  scientific  achievements  of  the  Arabians  in  the  Middle 
Ages  in  contrast  with  those  of  the  Christians.  But  the  Arabians  were 
at  the  same  time  intense  monotheists.  Draper  also  forgets  to  account 
for  the  fact  that  the  Christian  civilization  developed  the  revival  of 
learning,  while  Mahometan  civilization  decayed.  A  considerable  num- 
ber of  those  distinguished  in  science  have  been  ecclesiastics,  among 

*  Advancement  of  Learning,  B.  I. 
f  Advancement  of  Learning,  B.  I. 


THREE  GRADES  OF  SCIENTIFIC  KNOWLEDGE.  327 

whom  was  Copernicus  himself.  He  published  the  work  announcing  his 
discoveries,  as  he  himself  says  in  his  Preface,  at  the  urgent  advice  of 
friends,  one  of  whom  was  a  cardinal  and  another  a  bishop,  and  dedi- 
cated it  to  Pope  Paul  III.* 

In  the  recent  centuries  the  greatest  scientific  minds  have  been  devout. 
Sir  Humphrey  Davy  said :  "  I  envy  no  quality  of  mind  or  intellect  in 
others,  be  it  genius,  power,  wit  or  fancy ;  but  if  I  could  choose  what 
would  be  most  delightful  and  I  believe  most  useful  to  me,  I  should 
prefer  a  firm  religious  belief  to  every  other  blessing ;  for  it  makes  life 
a  discipline  of  goodness,  creates  new  hopes  when  all  earthly  hopes 
vanish,  throws  over  the  decay,  the  destruction  of  existence  the  most 
gorgeous  of  all  light,  awakens  life  in  death,  and  from  corruption  and 
decay  calls  up  beauty  and  divinity."  Hear  Linnaeus,  in  his  researches 
among  plants :  "  God,  the  eternal,  omniscient,  omnipotent,  I  have  seen 
from  behind  as  he  passed  by  and  have  been  awed."  Sir  Isaac  Newton 
records  his  testimony  at  the  close  of  the  Principia:  "This  beautiful 
system  of  sun,  planets  and  comets  could  have  its  origin  in  no  other 
way  than  the  purpose  and  command  of  an  intelligent  and  powerful 
being.  He  governs  all  things,  not  as  the  soul  of  the  world,  but  as  the 
Lord  of  the  universe.  He  is  not  only  God,  but  Lord  or  Governor.  We 
know  him  only  by  his  properties  and  attributes,  by  the  wise  and  admi- 
rable structure  of  things  around  us,  and  by  their  final  causes;  we 
admire  him  on  account  of  his  perfections,  we  venerate  and  worship  him 
on  account  of  his  government."  Listen  again  to  the  rapt  devotion  of 
Kepler,  with  which  he  closes  "  The  Harmonics  of  the  Universe  " :  "  Thou 
who  by  the  light  of  nature  hast  kindled  in  us  the  longing  after  the 
light  of  thy  grace,  in  order  to  raise  us  to  the  light  of  thy  glory,  I  give 
thanks  to  thee,  Creator  and  Lord,  that  thou  hast  given  me  delight  in 
thy  creation,  and  I  have  exulted  in  the  works  of  thy  hands.  I  have 
completed  the  work  which  I  proposed  with  such  force  of  intellect  as 
thou  hast  given  me.  I  have  manifested  the  glory  of  thy  works  to  the 
men  who  will  read  these  demonstrations,  so  far  as  my  limited  mind  can 
comprehend  thine  infinitude.  If  I,  a  worm  and  a  sinner,  have  set  forth 
anything  unworthy  of  thy  counsels,  inspire  me  to  correct  it  and  to  set 
forth  what  thou  wouldst  have  men  know.  If  by  the  admirable  beauty 
of  thy  works  I  have  been  hurried  into  any  rashness,  if  I  have  sought 
my  own  glory  among  men  while  prosecuting  a  work  intended  for  thy 
glory,  wilt  thou,  gentle  and  compassionate,  forgive.  And  deign  pro- 
pitiously to  cause  that  these  demonstrations  may  promote  thy  glory  and 
the  welfare  of  men.  Praise  ye  the  Lord,  ye  heavenly  harmonies  ;  and 
ye  that  understand  the  new  harmonies,  praise  ye  the  Lord.  Praise  God, 

*  De  Revolutionibus :  Prefatio. 


328  T1IE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

O  my  soul,  as  long  as  I  live.  From  him,  through  him,  and  in  him  is 
all,  the  material  as  well  as  the  spiritual ;  all  that  we  know,  and  all 
that  we  do  not  know  as  yet ;  for  there  is  much  to  do  that  is  yet  un- 
done." *  Hear,  also,  Lord  Bacon  in  this  choir  of  kingly  worshippers  : 
"  Thou,  therefore,  Father,  who  gavest  the  visible  light  as  the  first  fruits 
of  the  creation,  and  at  the  completion  of  thy  works  didst  inspire  the 
countenance  of  man  with  intellectual  light,  guard  and  direct  this  work, 
which  proceeding  from  thy  bounty,  seeks  in  return  thy  glory."  "  If  we 
labor  in  thy  works  thou  wilt  make  us  partakers  of  thy  vision  and  thy 
sabbath.  We  pray  that  this  mind  may  abide  in  us ;  and  that  by  our 
hands  and  the  hands  of  others  to  whom  thou  shalt  impart  the  same 
mind,  thou  wilt  be  pleased  to  endow  with  new  gifts  the  family  of  man." 
When  the  greatest  minds  in  the  history  of  natural  science  incorporate 
such  sentiments  into  their  scientific  treatises,  it  is  evident  that  there  is 
no  legitimate  conflict  between  true  science  and  the  knowledge  and  wor- 
ship of  God.  The  depth  and  grandeur  of  their  religious  sentiments 
accord  with  the  depth  of  their  thought  and  the  grandeur  of  their  in- 
tellects, and  contrast  strangely  with  the  flippancy,  the  rattling  super- 
ficiality, and  sometimes  the  envenomed  spite  of  atheistic  scientists  in 
their  treatment  of  religion. 

2.  The  historical  instances  of  direct  antagonism  on  the  part  of  the 
clergy  against  scientific  discoveries  are  comparatively  few.  The  state- 
ments made  on  this  point  make  the  impression  that  discoveries  in  science 
have  in  all  ages  been  usually  opposed  by  the  clergy ;  that  opposition 
has  been  the  rule,  not  the  exception.  This  is  a  gross  exaggeration,  and 
the  impression  which  it  makes  is  without  foundation.  The  condemna- 
tion of  Galileo  and  of  the  doctrine  of  the  antipodes  are  the  facts  always 
alluded  to ;  and  they  have  been  so  noised  abroad  that  the  impression 
seems  to  exist  that  the  Christian  clergy  in  all  ages  and  countries  have 
made  it  their  business  to  oppose  all  scientific  discoveries  and  to  excom- 
municate all  who  propagate  them.f  But  actual  instances  of  such 
opposition  have  been  comparatively  few.  When  a  scientific  discovery 
has  been  supposed  to  directly  contradict  the  Bible  or  the  existence  of 
God,  such  opposition  has  arisen.  But  the  great  multitude  of  scientific 
discoveries  have  suggested  no  such  contradiction  and  have  encountered 
no  opposition  or  hindrance  from  the  church.  Any  one  familiar  with 
the  history  of  science  has  only  to  recall  the  historical  facts  to  see  that 
in  the  great  majority  of  its  lines  of  investigation,  science  has  pursued 
its  course  unvexed  by  opposition  from  the  church  or  from  theologians. 

It  is  true  that  the  Roman  Catholic  church  holds  principles  incom- 

*  Harmonicas  Mundi :  p.  243.     Sub  finem. 

f  For  an  example  of  this  exaggeration,  see  Prof.  Tyndall  on  the  Sabbath,  Nine- 
teenth Century,  November,  1880. 


THREE  GRADES  OF  SCIENTIFIC   KNOWLEDGE.  329 

patible  with  freedom  of  thought.  The  Encyclical  of  Pope  Pius  IX.  in 
1864,  throughout  its  eighty  specifications  of  heresy,  seemed  to  be  a  bull 
against  the  civilization  of  the  nineteenth  century.  It  is  apologized  for 
as  aimed  against  only  the  revolutionary,  anarchical,  communistic  and 
atheistic  outcome  of  modern  thought.  Yet  it  is  truly  an  assertion  of 
the  claim  of  the  church  to  control  the  thought  and  conscience  of  men 
so  that,  within  whatever  spheres  liberty  of  investigation  is  unrestricted, 
it  is  so  only  as  a  privilege  allowed  by  the  church  and  liable  at  any 
time  to  be  withdrawn.  This  is  itself  one  of  the  false  positions  assumed 
in  times  of  spiritual  darkness  and  declension,  which  need  to  be  aban- 
doned as  religious  thought  adjusts  itself  to  the  progress  of  human 
knowledge.  The  Protestant  Reformation  was  the  true  development  of 
Christianity  reasserting  its  primitive  and  essential  spirit  and  truth,  and 
clearing  itself  from  accretions  of  error. 

But  there  is  gross  misapprehension  of  the  opposition  of  the  church  to 
science  even  hi  the  Dark  Ages.  Dr.  Draper,  in  "  The  Conflict  Between 
Religion  and  Science,"  maintains  that  the  Catholic  church  is  responsible 
for  the  condition  of  Europe  from  the  fourth  to  the  sixteenth  century. 
Certainly  an  author  is  destitute  of  the  historical  spirit  and  utterly 
incompetent  to  write  history  who  can  make  so  amazing  a  generalization 
and  account  for  the  course  of  events  during  those  centuries  by  a  single 
cause.  He  overlooks  the  political  influences  attending  the  decline  of 
the  Roman  empire,  the  accompanying  dissoluteness  and  degeneracy  of 
society,  the  influences  of  heathenism  introducing  the  voluptuous  reli- 
gions of  the  East  to  supplement  the  decaying  Roman  worship,  the  irrup- 
tion of  the  barbarians,  and  the  dissolution  of  society  and  its  institu- 
tions as  they  had  existed. 

He  also  confounds  the  errors  of  the  church  with  Christianity,  and 
thus  includes,  in  his  one  cause  of  the  decay,  the  very  influence  most 
effective  in  resisting  it  and  in  bringing  out  of  it  at  last  the  revival  of 
learning  and  the  reformation  of  religion.  Says  Guizot :  "  The  church 
was  the  great  connecting  link — the  principle  of  civilization — between 
the  Roman  and  the  barbarian  world.  Her  influence  on  modern  civil- 
ization has  been  more  powerful  than  its  most  violent  adversaries  or  its 
most  zealous  defenders  have  supposed."  The  introduction  of  Christ- 
ianity awakened  intense  intellectual  activity.  Questions  of  the  great- 
est importance  were  discussed ;  books  of  undying  value  were  written ; 
and  the  universal  mind  aroused  to  intense  action  on  subjects  vital  to 
the  welfare  of  man.  One  of  the  results,  so  long  secured  that  we 
forget  its  greatness,  was  the  overthrow  of  polytheism  and  the  establish- 
ment of  monotheism ;  another  was  the  elevation  of  the  human  mind  to 
appreciate  the  spirit  and  worth  of  man,  the  spiritual  worship  of  God, 
and  all  the  sublime  and  renovating  ideas  connected  with  the  recog- 


330  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS   OF  THEISM. 

nition  of  God,  and  of  man  as  in  his  image,  subject  to  his  law  and  re- 
deemed by  his  love. 

Christianity  was  introduced  amid  the  corruption  and  enervation 
attending  the  decline  of  the  Roman  empire,  when  the  people  had  sunk 
to  the  lowest  point  in  luxury  and  effeminacy,  in  barrenness  of  lofty 
principle,  in  the  corruption  of  public  morals  and  the  prevalence  of  a 
sensuous  skepticism.  Soon  after  began  the  irruption  of  the  barbarians 
which  introduced  idolatry,  barbarism  and  anarchy.  Christianity  had 
its  work  to  begin  anew ;  it  did  begin  it  and  with  success ;  the  barbarians 
abandoned  their  idols ;  government  and  the  supremacy  of  law  reap- 
peared ;  and  at  last  from  the  chaos  issued  a  civilization  purer,  nobler, 
more  full  of  blessings  than  the  world  had  ever  seen.  The  wonder  is, 
not  that  the  Christian  church  fell  into  error  and  that  Christianity 
effected  so  little,  but  that  both  the  church  and  Christianity  were  not 
swept  out  of  being.  Those  who  have  closely  studied  this  history  know 
that,  during  the  darkest  ages  and  the  greatest  corruption  of  the  church, 
the  real  principles  of  Christianity  wrere  working  in  many  directions 
against  the  errors  and  abuses  of  the  times  and  preparing  the  way  for 
that  reformation  of  the  church  and  that  new  civilization,  the  best  ele- 
ments of  which  are  the  development  and  realization  of  these  Christian 
principles.  It  were  well  for  those  who  ascribe  human  progress  to  sci- 
entific discoveries  and  mechanical  inventions  as  its  primary  cause,  to 
remember  that  Wickliff  had  arisen,  the  morning  star  of  the  Reforma- 
tion, and  Huss  had  aroused  his  countrymen  to  intense  activity  of 
thought  and  to  religious  reform,  before  printing  was  invented ;  that 
Luther  had  nailed  his  ninety-five  theses  to  the  church  door  in  Witten- 
berg before  the  telescope  or  microscope  existed,  before  there  was  a  post- 
office  system  in  England  or  a  carriage  on  springs  in  Paris ;  that  Puri- 
tanism was  in  England  before  the  Nuremberg  eggs,  as  they  called 
pocket  watches,  and  had  wrought  the  great  revolutions  of  1649  and 
1688,  which  laid  the  foundations  of  English  and  American  liberty 
before  Watt  or  Arkwright  was  born.  Always  spiritual  truth  in  its 
work  of  rousing  the  mind  to  action  has  gone  in  advance  of  scientific 
discovery  and  mechanical  invention. 

If  Dr.  Draper  had  studied  Comte's  Positive  Philosophy,  he  might 
have  attained  a  less  superficial  view  of  the  causes  which  have  advanced 
civilization.  Comte  affirms  that  the  influence  of  Christianity  was 
powerful  in  effecting  the  emancipation  of  serfs,  giving  dignity  to  labor 
and  introducing  the  industrial  civilization  which  is  displacing  the 
wars  of  conquest  and  the  military  civilization  of  heathen  and  Ma- 
hometan nations.  In  connection  with  the  elevation  of  labor,  Comte 
speaks  of  "  the  fine  spectacle  of  the  holy  hands  of  monks  extended  to 
labors  before  regarded  as  degrading."  Of  the  influence  of  Chris- 


THREE  GRADES  OF  SCIENTIFIC  KNOWLEDGE.  331 

tianity  in  the  Middle  Ages  in  promoting  emancipation,  he  says ;  "  The 
spiritual  influence  is  obvious  enough.  The  serfs  had  the  same  reli- 
gion with  their  superiors  and  the  same  fundamental  education  which 
was  derived  from  it.  And  not  only  did  religion  afford  them  rights 
by  prescribing  reciprocal  duties,  but  it  steadily  proclaimed  voluntary 
emancipation  to  be  a  Christian  duty,  whenever  the  laboring  classes 
showed  inclination  and  fitness  for  liberty.  The  famous  Bull  of 
Alexander  III.  on  the  general  abolition  of  slavery  in  Christendom, 
was  merely  an  official  sanction  of  a  custom  which  had  been  extend- 
ing for  some  centuries.  The  influence  thus  wrought  was  not  that  of 
moral  doctrine  alone.  The  morality  was  enforced  by  the  persevering 
action  of  a  priesthood  which  was  opposed  to  the  institution  of  caste 
and  open  to  be  recruited  from  every  social  class,  and  which  relied  for 
the  permanence  of  its  organization  on  the  laboring  classes,  whose  rise  it 
therefore  constantly  favored."  Of  the  new  industrial  civilization 
Comte  says :  "  This  change  constitutes  the  greatest  temporal  revolu- 
tion ever  experienced  by  mankind.  If  the  Greek  philosophers  had 
been  told  that  slavery  would  be  utterly  abolished,  and  that  the  free 
men  of  a  great  and  powerful  population  would  subject  themselves  to 
labors  then  considered  servile,  the  boldest  and  most  generous  thinkers 
would  have  cried  out  against  a  Utopia  so  absurd  and  utterly  base- 
less."* 

Similar  influences  in  the  earlier  Christian  centuries  had  given  dig- 
nity to  labor,  brought  the  Roman  slavery  to  an  end,  and  set  aside  the 
common  belief  of  Greeks  and  Romans  that  labor  and  earning  one's 
own  living  were  unworthy  of  free  citizenship.  Plautus  makes  one  of 
his  characters  say  it  is  not  worth  while  to  give  food  and  drink  to  the 
poor  man,  for  it  is  so  much  lost  to  the  giver  and  only  prolongs  the 
misery  of  the  receiver.f  ^Vnd  Plato  teaches  that  a  mechanic  has  no 
leisure  to  be  under  a  physician's  treatment';  let  him  try  some  active 
remedy  and  keep  about  his  business.  If  he  recovers  he  can  keep  on 
with  his  work  ;  if  he  dies  he  is  rid  of  his  troubles.  For  if  he  cannot 
attend  to  his  business  it  is  useless  for  him  to  live.J  Aristotle  says : 
"  We  cannot  dispense  with  farmers  and  mechanics ;  but  these  have 
nothing  to  do  with  public  affairs  and  are  not  worthy  of  the  name  of 
citizen.  They  are  incapable  of  greatness  of  soul  and  cannot  have  any 
manliness,  because  they  work  for  wages  and  therefore  must  be  of  a 
mercenary  spirit.  The  difference  between  them  and  slaves  is  an  ex- 
ternal difference  only.  They  ought  to  be  slaves,  and  would  if  the  State 
were  rich  enough  to  buy  them  or  strong  enough  to  enslave  them. 


*  Positive  Philosophy,  B.  VI.,  Chap.  xi.     Martineau's  Translation. 

|  Trinummus,  Act  2,  lines  339,  340.          |  Republic,  B.  III.,  Chap.  xv. 


332  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

Therefore  our  free  youth  ought  not  to  learn  any  trade,  for  that  would 
degrade  them  from  citizens  to  mechanics."  *  Three  hundred  years  later 
Cicero  utters  the  same  thought :  "  What  more  foolish  than  to  respect 
the  mass  of  the  people  as  anything,  when  you  despise  them  individually 
as  laborers  and  barbarians?  The  citizen  ought  to  abandon  the  merce- 
nary occupations  of  commerce  and  industry  to  slaves  and  freedmen,  be- 
cause no  one  can  be  free  who  is  dependent  on  a  salary."  He  excepted 
only  the  higher  arts,  medicine,  architecture,  the  teaching  of  philosophy, 
and  commerce  on  a  large  scale.  And  even  these  are  excepted  only 
with  the  qualification,  "  iis  quorum  ordini  convemunt  honestae ; "  and  as 
to  commerce  his  acknowledgment  is  only  negative,  and  that  with  a 
non  admodum :  " lion  est  adinodum  vituperanda" f 

Against  these  deep-seated  errors  of  heathenism  Christianity  imme- 
diately exerted  an'influence.  Christ  came  as  a  servant  and  in  explicit 
distinction  from  heathen^civilization  proclaimed  the  Christian  law  of 
service.  (Matt.  xx.  25-28.)  Paul  was  a  tent-maker  and  taught  Chr's- 
tians  to  do  their  own  business  and  to  work  with  their  own  hands  ;  for, 
he  said,  if  any  man  will  not  work  neither  let  him  eat.  And  similar 
was  the  preaching  of  the  fathers.  '  Basil  says,  "  Man  is  a  great  being ; " 
and  Ambrose,  "  Thou,  oh  man,  art  the  great  work  of  God."  And 
Chrysostom,  "  Do  not  imagine  that  an  injury  to  a  slave  will  be  par- 
doned as  if  of  no  consequence.  Human  laws  recognize  a  difference 
between  the  two  classes,  but  God's  law  knows  none."!  And  again : 
"  Let  us  not  be  ashamed  of  mechanical  employment ;  let  us  not  despise 
manual  labor ;  let  us  rather  despise  idleness  and  laziness.  If  work  were 
disgraceful,  Paul  would  not  have  worked  with  his  own  hands ;  he  would 
not  have  gloried  in  it  nor  forbidden  those  who  will  not  work  to  eat." 
And  again :  "  You  say  that  your  father  is  a  consul  and  your  mother  a 
saint.  No  matter ;  show  me  your  own  life ;  it  is  only  by  this  that  I 
judge  of  your  nobility.  I  call  the  slave  loaded  with  chains  noble  and 
lord,  if  I  see  nobility  in  his  life ;  I  call  base  and  ignoble  him  who, 
though  in  the  midst  of  dignities,  has  a  servile  spirit." 

This  same  movement,  originating  in  Christianity  and  borne  on 
through  the  ages  of  Christian  influences,  has  in  our  day  completed  the 
emancipation  of  serfs,  and  is  bringing  negro  slavery  to  an  end.  It  has 
exalted  private  business  to  the  character  of  a  public  function  in  the 
service  of  humanity,  and  given  scope  in  beneficent  industrial  enterprise 
to  the  ambition  and  energy  once  having  no  sphere  but  in  politics 
and  wars  of  conquest. 

*  Prof.  Schmidt :  Essai  Historique  sur  la  Societe"  civile  dans  le  Monde  Eomain  : 
pp.  68,  69,  74. 
f  De  Officiis,  B.  I.,  Chap.  42.  }  Homily  22  in  Ephes. 


THREE  GRADES  OF  SCIENTIFIC  KNOWLEDGE.  333 

• 
In  the  light  of  facts  like  these,  Dr.  Draper's  conception  of  the  history 

of  civilization  and  his  glorifying  of  the  Mahometan  and  Saracenic 
power  as  the  vital  source  of  modern  progress  appear  sufficiently 
ignorant  and  inane. 

3.  Scientific  discoveries  have  met  more  opposition  from  the  students 
of  natural  science  themselves  than  from  theologians.  Copernicus,  in 
the  dedication  to  Pope  Paul  III.  of  his  work  "  De  Orbium  Coelestium 
Revolutionibus,"  in  which  he  announced  and  defended  his  theory,  says 
that  he  had  kept  his  book  by  him  four  times  the  nine  years  required  by 
Horace  because  he  knew  how  absurd  his  doctrine  would  appear ;  and 
Whewell  adds  :  "  It  will  be  observed  that  he  speaks  of  the  opposition 
of  the  established  school  of  astronomers,  not  of  divines."  The  theory 
encountered  great  opposition  from  astronomers,  as  Copernicus  had 
anticipated.  It  made  its  way  slowly  to  acceptance  by  scientific  men% 
Lord  Bacon  persisted  in  rejecting  it  to  the  end  of  his  life.  Whewell 
says:  "Perhaps  the  works  of  the  celebrated  Bishop  Wilkins"  —  a 
divine  it  will  be  noticed — "tended  more  than  any  others  to  the  diffu- 
sion of  the  Copernicaii  system  in  England."  And  Wilkins's  books 
were  published  in  1638  and  1640,  nearly  a  hundred  years  after  Coper- 
nicus had  published  his  system.  *  The  great  physicians  and  philoso- 
phers of  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century  and  the  beginning  of  the 
eighteenth,  Huygens,  Bernouilli,  Cassini,  Leibnitz,  nearly  all  the  disci- 
ples of  Descartes,  opposed  Newton's  system  of  gravitation.  "  The  New- 
tonian opinions  had  scarcely  any  disciples  in  France,  till  Voltaire 
asserted  their  claims  on  his  return  from  England  in  1728;  until  then, 
as  he  himself  says,  there  were  not  twenty  Newtonians  out  of  England."  f 
Of  Harvey's  discovery  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood,  Aubrey,  in  his 
"  Lives  of  Eminent  Persons  in  the  Seventeenth  and  Eighteenth  Centu- 
ries," says :  "  After  his  Book  of  the  Circulation  of  the  Blood  came  out 
he  fell  mightily  in  his  practice,  and  'twas  believed  by  the  vulgar  that 
he  was  crack-brained  ;  and  all  the  physicians  were  against  his  opinion 
and  envied  him."  And  after  his  discovery  was  accepted  in  England,  it 
was  still  opposed  abroad ;  so  that  when,  in  later  life,  he  was  urged  to 
publish  the  results  of  his  researches  on  generation,  he  declined,  because 
he  was  unwilling  again  to  incur  the  "great  troubles"  and  "to  stir  up 
the  tempests"  which,  he  said,  "  my  lucubrations  formerly  published 
have  raised."  The  controversies  of  the  believers  in  phlogiston  against 
those  wrho  recognized  the  discovery  of  oxygen  were  long  and  bitter. 
Dr.  Jenner's  discovery  of  vaccination  was  opposed  and  denounced  by 
physicians.  The  Academy  of  Paris  attempted  to  overthrow  the  micro- 

*  Whewell,  Hist.  Inductive  Sciences,  Vol.  I.,  pp.  267,  272,  275. 
f  Whewell,  Hist.  Inductive  Sciences,  Vol.  I.,  p.  429. 


334  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

scopic  discoveries  of  Swammerdam  and  Leeuwenhoeck,  a  century  after 
they  were  made,  with  the  sneer,  "  One  can  generally  see  with  the  micro- 
scope whatever  one  imagines."  The  Edinburgh  Review  (January,  1879) 
says :  "  The  faculty  of  unconscious  and  involuntary  movement  caused 
by  the  impact  of  mechanical  impressions,  which  is  now  a  well  under- 
stood and  thoroughly  accepted  function  of  nerve  organization,  was 
received  as  a  dire  heresy  when  it  was  first  propounded  by  Dr.  Marshall 
Hall."  When,  in  his  second  memoir  on  the  subject  before  the  Royal 
Society,  Dr.  H.  described  the  movements  of  a  headless  turtle,  "  a  deri- 
sive note  was  scrawled  upon  the  paper  by  one  of  the  pundits  of  the 
Society,  inquiring  whether  the  turtle  was  alive  after  it  was  made  into 
soup.  It  is  a  part  of  the  history  of  this  discovery  that,  in  1 837,  this 
second  memorial  of  Dr.  Hall  was  rejected  by  the  Council  of  the  Royal 
Society  as  unworthy  of  acceptance." 

I  will  not  multiply  instances  which  the  history  of  almost  every  new 
discovery  furnishes.  But  the  clergyman  may  well  say,  as  JEsop's  wolf 
did  when  he  saw  the  shepherds  eating  a  lamb,  "  If  I  had  done  this, 
what  an  outcry  would  have  been  heard ! " 

IV.  Theologians  should  recognize  the  fact  that  the  progress  of 
knowledge  may.  necessitate  the  correction  of  theological  opinion  in 
order  to  adjust  it  to  newly  discovered  facts,  laws  or  truths.  If  a  person 
holds  a  theological  doctrine  which  obliges  him  to  object  to  vaccination 
or  to  lightning  rods  as  interfering  with  the  providence  of  God,  the 
progress  of  science  requires  him  to  amend  his  theology.  Theology, 
like  all  human  knowledge,  is  progressive,  both  in  the  way  of  correcting 
mistakes  and  of  receiving  knowledge  of  new  reality.  And  the  theolo- 
gian has  no  reason  to  fear  the  progress  of  natural  science ;  for  truth 
in  one  department  of  knowledge  can  never  conflict  with  truth  in 
another. 

At  the  same  time  the  theologian  should  be  in  no  haste  to  modify  his 
theology  in  order  to  adjust  it  to  new  scientific  discoveries  and  theories. 
For  man's  knowledge  of  natural  science  is  also  progressive.  Every 
generation  corrects  the  mistakes  and  enlarges  the  knowledge  of  its  pre- 
decessors in  every  department  of  physical  science.  What  is  accepted 
as  science  to-day  may  be  rejected  in  the  future.  When,  a  few  years 
ago,  geology  recognized  the  theory  of  catastrophes,  if  a  theologian  had 
attempted  to  reconcile  his  interpretation  of  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis 
with  geology,  his  reconciliation  would  have  been  of  little  worth  since 
Lyell's  theory  of  uniformitarianism  has  been  accepted.  Already  we 
have  geologists  who  are  suggesting  the  necessity  of  at  least  combining 
catastrophism  with  uniformitarianism  in  order  to  take  up  all  geological 
facts.  It  is  idle,  therefore,  to  be  continually  trembling  lest  theology 
cannot-  be  harmonized  with  every  shifting  phase  of  physical  science. 


THREE  GRADES  OF  SCIENTIFIC  KNOWLEDGE.  335 

The  harmony  is  as  likely  to  be  attained  by  correcting  an  error  or  by  an 
advance  of  knowledge  in  natural  science  as  in  theology.  We  should  do 
our  work  as  theologians,  trying  to  make  men  wiser  and  better  by  the 
knowledge  of  God,  of  his  law  and  his  love,  calm  in  the  confidence  that 
the  legitimate  tendency  and  ultimate  issue  of  the  progress  of  knowledge 
in  every  department  will  be  to  confirm,  clarify  and  enlarge  our  know- 
ledge of  God. 

V.  Theologians  and  others  who  have  not  themselves  made  scientific 
investigations,  must  receive  facts  on  the  authority  of.  scientific  investi- 
gators, but  are  competent  to  reason  on  the  facts  and  to  judge  of  the 
generalizations,  inferences  and  theories  of  scientists  respecting  them. 
When  one  who  is  not  a  professional  scientist  ventures  to  criticize  a 
scientific  generalization,  or  inference,  or  hypothesis,  or  theory,  it  is  very 
common  and  also  very  easy  to  dismiss  it  with  the  sneer  that  the  man  is 
not  a  scientist,  and  therefore  is  incompetent  to  discuss  the  subject. 
Here  is  a  confounding  of  widely  different  things.  One  who  has  not 
himself  made  scientific  investigation  as  to  a  fact,  must  receive  the  fact 
on  the  authority  of  the  scientist  who  has  observed  it.  One  who  is  not 
a  chemist  must  accept  on  the  authority  of  chemists  facts  which  they 
have  observed  in  their  laboratories.  One  who  is  not  an  astronomer 
must  accept  the  facts  which  astronomers  observe  with  their  instru- 
ments. But  when  the  scientist  proceeds  to  announce  his  own  general- 
ization of  these  facts,  his  inferences  from  them,  the  hypotheses  and 
theories  which  he  constructs  respecting  them,  any  well-educated  person 
is  competent  to  judge  of  the  correctness  of  his  processes  and  his  con- 
clusions ;  or  to  take  the  facts  and  generalize  them  or  reason  from  them 
for  himself.  This  distinction  is  recognized  by  Prof.  Tyndall :  "  To  judge 
of  the  soundness  of  scientific  data  and  to  reason  from  data  assumed  to 
be  sound  are  two  totally  different  things."  H.  Spencer,  in  a  review  of 
Prof.  Owen's  theory  of  the  vertebrate  skeleton,  recognizes  the  same 
distinction :  "  We  confess  that  nearly  all  we  know  of  this  department 
of  biology  has  been  learned  from  his  lectures  and  writings.  We  pre- 
tend to  no  independent  investigations,  but  merely  to  such  knowledge 
of  phenomena  as  he  has  furnished  us  with.  .  .  .  Had  Prof.  Owen 
simply  enunciated  his  generalizations "  (I  should  substitute  facts  for 
generalizations),  "  we  should  have  accepted  them  on  his  authority.  But 
he  has  brought  forward  evidence  to  prove  them.  By  so  doing  he  has 
tacitly  appealed  to  the  judgment  of  his  readers  and  hearers — has  prac- 
tically said, '  Here  are  the  facts ;  do  they  not  warrant  these  conclusions?' 
And  all.wre  propose  to  do  is  to  consider  whether  the  conclusions  are 
warranted  by  the  facts  brought  forward."  This  is  reasonable.  The 
claim  of  some  loud-mouthed  scientists  that  none  but  professional  sci- 
entists are  competent  to  judge  of  their  reasonings  and  conclusions  is 


336  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

contrary  to  common  sense,  and  is  an  attempt  to  suppress  free  thought 
by  dogmatic  authority. 

It  must  be  added  that  theologians  and  other  educated  persons,  who 
are  not  professional  students  of  natural  science,  are  better  qualified  in 
some  respects  to  judge  of  the  correctness  of  reasoning  from  scientific 
facts  than  the  professional  students  of  nature  themselves.  However 
important  to  all  students  the  discipline  of  empirical  methods  may  be, 
equally  important  to  the  empirical  student  is  instruction  in  logic  and 
the  laws  of  thought  and  the  discipline  accordant  therewith,  the  lack  of 
which  is  often  so  noticeable  in  the  reasoning  of  scientists  in  support  of 
their  theories.  Haeckel  pungently  rebukes  this  defect,  and  himself 
strikingly  exemplifies  it.  Also,  scientists  are  at  a  disadvantage  in  the 
extreme  specialism  which  is  necessary  from  the  minute  subdivision  of 
modern  sciences.  This  is  especially  apparent  when  their  reasonings 
pertain  to  the  unity  of  large  generalizations  from  many  sciences.  One 
whose  life  has  been  spent  in  investigating  the  minute  details  of  a  single 
corner  of  a  great  science  must  be  less  competent  for  the  broadest  gener- 
alizations of  human  thought  than  a  theologian  whose  life  is  spent  in 
studying  the  most  comprehensive  generalizations  and  laws  of  nature  and 
of  man,  and  in  contemplating  all  particular  facts,  and  all  scientific  gener- 
alizations and  laws  in  the  unity  of  an  all-comprehending  system  of  reason. 

The  charge  of  narrowness  and  bigotry  against  theologians  has  been 
sufficiently  frequent  and  bitter.  And  it  is  true  that  they  have  not 
escaped  the  influences  inseparable  from  every  special  pursuit.  The 
theologian  may  get  lost  in  the  mustiness  of  the  past  and  mistake  the 
exploring  of  libraries  for  the  investigation  of  truth ;  he  may  need 
Faust's  admonition  to  his  scholar :  "  Is  parchment  "the  holy  well  a 
drink  from  which  allays  thy  thirst  forever?  Thou  hast  not  gained 
the  cordial  if  it  gushes  not  from  thy  own  soul."  But  devotion  to 
science  exposes  to  a  like  danger.  Minerals  and  plants,  chemical  and 
mechanical  forces,  may  be  as  dry  as  the  driest  parchment  and  as  power- 
less for  true  culture.  John  Stuart  Mill  says:  "This  lowering  effect 
of  the  extreme  division  of  labor  tells  most  of  all  on  those  who  are  set 
up  as  the  lights  and  teachers  of  the  rest.  A  man's  mind  is  as  fatally 
narrowed  and  his  feelings  towards  the  great  ends  of  humanity  as  mis- 
erably stunted  by  giving  ail  his  thoughts  to  the  classification  of  a  few 
insects  or  the  resolution  of  a  few  equations,  as  to  sharpening  the  points 
or  putting  on  the  heads  of  pins.  The  '  dispersive  specialty '  of  the  pre- 
sent race  of  scientific  men,  who,  unlike  their  predecessors,  have  a  posi- 
tive aversion  to  enlarged  views,  and  seldom  either  know  or  care  for  any 
of  the  interests  of  mankind  beyond  the  narrow  limits  of  their  pursuits, 
is  dwelt  on  by  Comte  as  one  of  the  great  and  growing  evils  of  the  time, 
and  the  one  which  most  retards  moral  and  spiritual  regeneration.  To 


THREE  GRADES  OF  SCIENTIFIC   KNOWLEDGE.  337 

contend  against  it  is  one  of  the  main  purposes  towards  which  he  thinks 
the  forces  of  society  should  be  directed." 

VI.  It  is  legitimate  for  theologians  to  controvert  atheism  and  agnos- 
ticism when  promulgated  as  natural  science  or  as  necessarily  implied  in 
or  inferred  from  it ;  and  they  are  falsely  and  unjustly  stigmatized  as 
opposing  natural  science  in  so  doing. 

1.  Because  in  promulgating   atheism,  agnosticism  or  irreligion  the 
student  of  natural  science  passes  beyond  the  sphere  of  empirical  sci- 
ence and  begins  to  dogmatize  in  the  sphere  of  metaphysics  and  theology. 
Empirical  science  within  its  own  sphere  and  by  its  own  methods   is 
entirely  incompetent  to  attain  the  idea  of  God  or  to  declare  his  exist- 
ence.    It  is  equally  incompetent  to  deny  his  existence  or  the  possibility 
of  knowing  that  he  exists.     Each  of  these  denials  assumes  the  validity 
of  metaphysical  and  theological  methods  and  the  reality  of  metaphysical 
and  theological  knowledge,  and  announces  a  negative  answer  to  the 
most  profound  questions  of  metaphysics  and  theology.     If  man  has  no 
faculty  of  metaphysical  and  theological  knowledge,  it  is  as  impossible 
for  him  to  ascertain  and  declare  that  there  is  no  God  as  to  ascertain 
and  declare  that  there  is  one;  as  impossible  for  him  to  be  conscious 
that  he  is  ignorant  of  God  and  to  ascertain  and  declare  his  incompe- 
tence to  know  him,  as  for  a  pig  to  be  conscious  of  his  ignorance  of  the 
Calculus  or  of  Logarithms  and  to  ascertain  and  declare  his  incompe- 
tence to  know  them.     In  affirming  atheism  or  agnosticism,  the  student 
of  nature  has  left  the  sphere  of  empirical  science ;  in  controverting  his 
atheism  or  agnosticism,  the  theologian  is  controverting  his  false  theology 
and  metaphysics,  not  his  empirical  science.     Prof.  J.  Lawrence  Smith, 
in  his  address  as  President  of  the  American  Scientific  Association  at  the 
session  in  Portland,  said :  "  It  is  a  very  common  attempt  nowadays  for 
scientists  to  transcend  the  limits  of  their  legitimate  studies  and  run  into 
speculations  the  most  unphilosophical  and  absurd;  quitting  the  true 
basis  of  inductive  philosophy  and  building  up  the  most  curious  theories 
on  little  else  than  assertion;   speculating  upon  the  merest  analogy; 
striving  to  work  out  speculative  results  by  the  inductive  method.     This 
is  a  perversion  of  Bacon's  philosophy ;  and  we  cannot  wonder  that  one 
adopting  such  views,  whatever  his  claim  to  genius  may  be,  soon  cuts 
loose  from  all  physical  reasoning  and  becomes  involved  in  the  most 
transcendental  and  absurd  opinions."   Of  this  the  famous  Prof.  Lorenzo 
Oken,  of  Zurich,  was  a  remarkable  example. 

2.  Those  students  of  natural  science  who  thus  transcend  the  limits 
of  empirical  science  and  dogmatize  in  the  sphere  of  theology  and  meta- 
physics, reveal  a  dangerous  tendency  to  establish  a  scientific  priesthood, 
which  shall  authoritatively  prescribe  to  men  their  religious  and  philo- 
sophical opinions. 

22 


338  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

They  are  accustomed  to  have  men  accept  on  their  authority  the  facts 
which  they  have  scientifically  ascertained  ;  they  unconsciously  come  to 
regard  themselves  as  equal  authorities  in  whatever  inferences  they  may 
draw  from  the  facts.  And  as  popular  lecturers  and  writers  for  popular 
magazines,  they  gradually  assume  more  and  more  of  the  priestly  func- 
tion and  propound  their  own  opinions  as  scientific  facts.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  people  are  accustomed  to  regard  them  as  authorities  as  to 
facts  in  their  specific  departments  of  science,  and  failing  to  discriminate 
between  facts  and  opinions,  come  to  accept  their  metaphysical  and 
theological  speculations  and  their  imaginative  theories  as  indisputable 
scientific  facts.  To  this  tendency,  exemplified  in  favor  of  theology, 
Prof.  Tyndall  alludes  in  his  Belfast  address :  "  When  the  human  mind 
has  achieved  greatness  and  given  evidence  of  extraordinary  power  in 
any  domain,  there  is  a  tendency  to  credit  it  with  similar  power  in  all 
other  domains.  Thus  theologians  have  found  comfort  and  assurance  in 
the  thought  that  Newton  dealt  with  the  question  of  revelation,  forgetful 
of  the  fact  that  the  very  devotion  of  his  powers,  through  all  the  best 
years  of  his  life,  to  a  totally  different  class  of  ideas  ....  tended 
to  render  him  less  instead  of  more  competent  to  deal  with  theological 
and  historic  questions."  Prof.  TyndalPs  own  notorious  errors  in  his 
notices  of  the  history  of  philosophy  in  this  very  address  exemplify  this 
remark,  and  doubtless  by  many  readers  are  received  as  scientifically 
accurate  on  the  authority  of  a  popularly  known  scientist. 

Thus,  both  on  the  part  of  a  considerable  number  of  scientists,  espe- 
cially of  those  who  spend  a  large  part  of  their  strength  in  popularizing 
science,  and  on  the  part  of  the  people,  the  tendency  to  establish  and 
recognize  a  hierarchy  of  scientists,  authoritatively  dogmatizing  as  to 
what  men  must  believe  and  disbelieve,  is  gaining  strength. 

It  has  even  had  explicit  avowal.  Comte,  in  his  positive  politics, 
called  in  a  well-known  witticism  Roman  Catholicism  with  the  religion 
left  out,  provides  in  his  imaginary  political  State  a  hierarchy  of  savans, 
who  are  to  declare  what  is  scientifically  true,  and  enforce  its  acceptance 
by  punishment  of  all  who  reject  it.  Kenan  speculates  whether  "  the 
future  will  not  bring  back  something  analogous  to  the  ecclesiastical 
discipline  which  modern  liberalism  has  so  jealously  suppressed."  ^  Mr. 
Lewes  gives  us  the  dictum:  "Whatever  is  inaccessible  to  reason, should 
be  strictly  interdicted  by  reason ; "  respecting  which  the  Duke  of  Argyll 
remarks :  "  Here  we  have  the  true  ring  of  the  old  sacerdotal  interdicts. 
Who  is  to  define  beforehand  what  is  or  what  is  not  inaccessible  to  rea- 
son?" A  writer  in  the  Westminster  Keview  (October,  1873,  p.  398), 
speaking  of  the  modern  man  of  science,  says :  "  Above  all  things  he  is 

*  St.  Paul,  p.  392. 


THREE  GRADES  OF  SCIENTIFIC   KNOWLEDGE.  339 

silent  in  the 'presence  of  truths  (or  falsehoods)  which  he  has  ascertained 
to  t>e  beyond  his  reach ;  and  he  commands  equally  in  respect  to  these 
silence  on  all  others  of  mankind."  Prof.  Huxley  says  in  the  Fort- 
nightly Review  (November,  1871,  pp.  532,  538) :  "  I  do  not  see  how 
any  limit  whatever  can  be  laid  down  as  to  tne  extent  to  which,  under 
some  circumstances,  the  action  of  government  may  be  rightfully  carried. 
.  .  .  .  Are  we  not  bound  to  admit  with  Locke  that  the  State  may 
have  right  to  interfere  with  popery  and  atheism,  if  it  be  really  true 
that  the  practical  consequences  of  such  belief  can  be  proved  to  be 
injurious  to  civil  government?"  And  why  not,  then,  equally  a  right 
to  interfere  with  theism  and  Christianity,  if  an  atheistic  government 
believes  them  effete  and  a  hindrance  to  the  progress  of  society  ?  The 
demand  of  Prof.  Haeckel  that  an  atheistic  doctrine  of  evolution  should 
be  required  by  the  government  to  be  taught  in  all  German  schools,  and 
the  reply  of  Virchow  opposing  the  demand,  show  how  close  at  hand  and 
how  practical  this  question  is.  The  Spectator  is  among  the  most  liberal 
of  English  newspapers.  It  recently  said :  "  Physical  investigation  has 
often  been  arrogant  and  ignorant  in  its  attacks  on  theology.  ...  At 
all  events,  in  the  present  day  and  among  intellectually  cultivated  peo- 
ple, it  takes,  we  think,  more  courage  to  make  a  stand  against  the  pre- 
sumptuous modesty  of  the  philosophy  of  nescience  than  against  the 
narrow  bigotry  of  theological  restriction."  Now  and  then  some  scientist 
proclaims  with  considerable  heat  the  right  of  students  of  physical  science 
to  investigate  all  questions.  Certainly,  in  common  with  all  men,  they 
have  the  undisputed  right  to  investigate  all  questions  and  to  publish 
their  conclusions.  The  objection  is  to  their  proclaiming  their  philo- 
sophical and  theological  speculations  and  negations  and  their  unverified 
hypotheses  as  established  facts  and  laws  of  empirical  science,  to  be 
received  implicitly  on  their  authority  by  all  who  are  not  specialists  in 
physical  science. 

3.  Atheism  and  agnosticism  have  practical  bearings  adverse  to  the 
virtue  and  well-being  of  man,  and  there  is  a  legitimate  moral  interest  in 
opposition  to  them.      An  insidious  error  is  industriously  propagated 
under  the  misnomer  of  love  of  truth,  which  requires  us  to  suppress  all 
our  moral  intuitions  and  sentiments  and  to  regard  with  indifference  all 
theories  which  ask  a  hearing,  being  always  equally  willing  to  receive 
one  as  another,  whatever  be  its  moral  tendencies.     It  is  an  error  as 
unphilosophical  and  unscientific  as  it  is  immoral.     The  moral  aspect 
of  a  doctrine  is  an  important  element  of  evidence  in  judging  of  its 
truth ;  its  immoral  tendency  is  a  legitimate  reason  for  rejecting  and 
opposing  it.     Moral  indignation  is  the  legitimate  and  healthy  spirit  in 
which  to  meet  doctrines  hostile  to  good  morals. 

4.  The  opposition  of  theologians  in  this  case  is  not  opposition  to 


340  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

natural  science,  but  to  atheism,  agnosticism  and  immorality.  There  is' 
no  conflict  between  science  and  theology ;  but  theology  is  in  controversy 
with  atheism  even  when  it  masks  itself  in  the  disguise  of  science.  And 
it  is  not  the  theologian,  but  the  atheistic  scientist,  who  is  responsible  for 
the  conflict.  It  is  not  theology  assailing  science,  but  it  is  scientists 
teaching  atheism  who  assail  theology.  The  common  form  of  expression 
is  the  opposition  of  theology  to  science ;  as  if  theology  were  the  aggressor. 
The  truth  of  history  is  just  the  contrary ;  scientists  assail  theology  by 
teaching  atheism  or  agnosticism  as  science.  Theology  controverts  the 
atheism  and  the  agnosticism.  It  has  no  conflict  with  natural  science. 

VII.  There  is  no  extraordinary  reason  at  the  present  time  to  appre- 
hend the  overthrow  of  Christianity  by  the  assaults  of  skepticism. 
Matthew  Arnold  may  perhaps  be  selected  as  the  one  who  more  than 
any  other  has  given  voice  to  the  fear  by  which  many  are  well  nigh 
paralyzed.  At  the  Grande  Chartreuse,  pondering  on  its  past  glories 
and  on  the  faith  of  its  cowled  monks  still  lingering  within  its  walls,  he 
says: 

"  Wandering  between  two  worlds,  one  dead, 
The  other  powerless  to  be  born, 

With  nowhere  yet.  tp  rest  my  head, 
Like  these  on  earth  I  wait  forlorn. 

Their  faith,  my  tears  the  world  deride; 

I  come  to  shed  them  at  their  side. 

"  But  if  you  cannot  give  us  ease, 

Last  of  the  race  of  them  who  grieve, 
Here  leave  us  to  die  out  with  these 

Last  of  the  people  who  believe ! 
Silent  while  years  engrave  the  brow : 
Silent ; — the  best  are  silent  now. 

"  Achilles  ponders  in  his  tent ; 

The  kings  of  modern  thought  are  dumb ; 
Silent  they  are,  though  not  content, 

And  wait  to  see  the  future  come. 
They  have  the  grief  men  had  of  yore, 
But  they  contend  and  cry  no  more." 

1.  In  reply  to  this  spirit  of  despair  I  say,  first,  that  in  every  period 
of  the  history  of  Christianity,  from  the  beginning  until  now,  despair 
of  its  progress  and  even  of  its  perpetuity  would  be  the  just  conclusion 
from  a  comparison  merely  of  the  human  forces  working  for  and  against 
it,  irrespective  of  the  gracious  energy  of  God  working  in  it  and  for  it. 
Whoever  studies  the  story  of  the  struggle  of  Christianity  during  its  first 
three  hundred  years  with  heathenism  backed  by  the  intellectual  and 
physical  forces  of  the  Roman  empire,  and  its  ultimate  triumph,  must 
see  that  through  the  entire  period  the  comparison  of  the  human  forces 


THREE  GRADES  OF  SCIENTIFIC  KNOWLEDGE.  341 

in  the  conflict  could  justify  only  the  expectation  that  Christianity  would 
be  overpowered  and  extinguished.  The  same  is  true  of  any  period  of 
the  Dark  Ages.  The  same  is  true  of  the  Protestant  Reformation.  The 
progress  of  Christianity  is  a  perpetual  surprisal.  So  our  Lord  declared : 
"  He  will  show  him  greater  works  than  these  that  ye  may  marvel."  Its 
perpetuation  and  progress  through  the  ages  has  been  a  perpetual  attest- 
ation of  the  presence  and  power  of  God.  We  have  as  much  reason  to 
expect  its  perpetuation  and  power  now  as  ever  in  the  past.  Christianity 
consists  essentially  of  the  presence  and  energy  of  God  working  in  human 
history  to  deliver  men  from  sin  and  to  establish  the  reign  of  righteous- 
ness and  of  good-will.  Despair  of  its  progress  rests  on  disbelief  of  that 
gracious  presence  and  energy. 

2.  Skepticism  is  not  more  prevalent  and  powerful  than  in  some 
former  periods.  Even  in  ancient  Greece  we  discover  similar  fears  of 
atheism.  Plato  says :  "  It  is  commonly  thought  that  they  who  addict 
themselves  to  astronomy  and  similar  studies  are  made  atheists  by  it — 
they  seeing  as  much  as  possible  how  things  come  to  pass  by  physical 
necessity,  and  therefore  thinking  them  not  to  be  ordered  by  reason  and 
will  for  the  sake  of  good."*  I  will  mention  but  one  example  in  Christian 
times :  the  decline  of  religion  in  Great  Britain  and  America  in  the  last 
century.  Bishop  Butler,  in  the  "  Advertisement "  which  he  prefixed  to 
the  "  Analogy,"  says :  "  It  has  come,  I  know  not  how,  to  be  taken  for 
granted  by  many  persons  that  Christianity  is  not  so  much  as  a  subject 
of  inquiry ;  but  that  it  is  now  at  length  discovered  to  be  fictitious.  And 
accordingly  they  treat  it  as  if,  in  the  present  age,  this  were  an  agreed 
point  among  all  people  of  discernment,  and  nothing  remained  but  to 
set  it  up  as  a  principal  subject  of  mirth  and  ridicule.  ...  On  the 
contrary,  thus  much  at  least  will  be  here  found,  not  taken  for  granted, 
but  proved,  that  any  reasonable  man,  who  will  thoroughly  consider  the 
matter,  may  be  as  much  assured  as  he  is  of  his  own  being,  that  it  is  not, 
however,  so  clear  a  case  that  there  is  nothing  in  it."  This  growing 
disbelief  is  also  a  theme  in  his  Charge  to  the  Clergy.  Another  witness 
in  respect  to  the  same  period  is  President  Edwards,  who  says :  "  History 
gives  no  account  of  any  age  wherein  there  was  so  great  an  infidel  apos- 
tasy of  those  who  had  been  brought  up  under  the  light  of  the  gospel ; 
never  was  there  such  a  disavowal  of  all  revealed  religion."!  He  is 
speaking  both  of  Great  Britain  and  America.  And  yet  the  period  fol- 
lowing these  testimonies  of  Butler  and  Edwards,  so  much  like  the 
despairing  remarks  of  the  present  day,  was  in  both  countries  one  of 
remarkable  and  widespread  revival  of  the  Christian  faith  and  life.  One 
who  studies  the  history  of  Christianity  in  its  wholeness  and  notes  the 

*  Laws,  B.  XII.,  967.  f  History  of  Redemption,  Period  III.,  Part  V. 


342  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

recurring  epochs  of  infidel  assaults  upon  it,  instead  of  despairing  of  its 
progress,  will  rather  admire  the  sublimity  with  which  Christianity  holds 
on  its  way,  like  the  sun  emerging  undimmed  from  the  earthly  mists 
which  temporarily  obscure  it.  If  we  are  living  in  an  epoch  of  skepti- 
cism, such  epochs  have  occurred  before  and  are  always  transient. 

3.  The  recurrence  of  epochs  of  skepticism  is  incidental  to  the  pro- 
gress of  Christianity.  This  is  evident  so  soon  as  we  rightly  understand 
the  true  idea,  aim  and  methods  of  Christianity,  and  the  facts  pertain- 
ing to  humanity  which  condition  its  progress. 

Its  effects  are  not  consummated  by  resistless  almightiness,  but  by 
God's  gracious  influence  on  men  free  to  consent  or  to  resist — influences 
of  wisdom  and  love  to  enlighten  them  in  the  knowledge  of  the  truth 
and  to  draw  them  by  their  own  willing  consent  to  conform  their  char- 
acter and  lives  to  it.  Hence  Christianity  presents  itself  anew  for 
acceptance  or  rejection  to  every  generation  and  to  every  man.  Hence 
the  conflict  which  marked  the  introduction  of  Christianity  is  renewed 
in  every  age.  In  the  nature  of  the  case  Christianity  cannot  become 
a  consummated  effect,  fixed  unchangeably  for  all  time.  In  its  very 
nature  it  is  the  offer  of  God's  grace  which  every  man  in  every  genera- 
tion must  receive  or  reject ;  it  is  the  presence  in  human  history  of  the 
divine  influences  of  truth  and  love  to  which  every  man  in  every  gene- 
ration must  consent  or  refuse  to  conform  his  life.  The  conflict  of  divine 
wisdom  and  love  against  human  ignorance,  error  and  sin  must  con- 
tinue so  long  as  man  remains  a  rational  free  agent,  the  subject  of  ig- 
norance, error  and  sin,  and  so  long  as  God  remains  the  perfect  Reason, 
the  perfect  Wisdom  and  Love  energizing  in  human  history  to  redeem 
mon  from  error  and  sin  and  bring  them  into  harmony  with  his  own 
wisdom  and  love.  Hence  the  significance  of  the  scriptural  expression 
that  the  Spirit  of  God  "  abides "  among  men,  "  striving "  through  all 
the  courses  of  human  history  to  accomplish  for  men  the  wise  and  be- 
nignant ends  of  his  redeeming  love. 

A  similar  conclusion  is  necessary  if  we  consider  the  progress  of  man 
.in  the  knowledge  of  nature,  in  industrial  inventions,  in  political  insti- 
tutions, in  the  adjustment  of  the  various  relations  of  men  in  society. 
So  far  as  progress  involves  the  abandonment  of  error  and  the  correc- 
tion of  mistakes,  it  presupposes  skepticism  in  its  better  meaning.  New 
knowledge  in  any  department  of  life  makes  it  necessary  to  inquire  how 
that  new  knowledge  and  the  modification  of  the  conduct  of  life  in  har- 
mony with  it  are  to  be  adjusted  to  the  unchanging  truth  and .  grace  of 
God,  and  to  the  reign  of  the  perfect  reason  and  its  perfect  wisdom  and 
love.  Skepticism  in  its  better  sense  marks,  not  merely  a  transient,  but 
also  a  transitional  state  to  a  larger  and  wiser  knowledge  of  the  truth. 
And  it  is  not  strange  that,  in  such  a  period,  many  drop  into  the  baser 


THREE  GRADES  OF  SCIENTIFIC  KNOWLEDGE.  343 

skepticism,  into  the  abyss  which  Carlyle  calls  the  Everlasting  No,  and 
deny  altogether  the  reign  of  Reason,  the  supremacy  and  continuous 
presence  and  energy  of  absolute  wisdom  and  love  in  the  conduct  of  the 
universe. 

That  the  present  epoch  of  skepticism  is  transitional  to  a  larger,  purer 
and  more  efficient  faith  I  cannot  doubt.  Precisely  what  the  change 
will  be  cannot  yet  be  accurately  foreseen.  "  We  wait  to  see  the  future 
come,"  not  in  fear  or  despair,  but  in  faith  in  Christianity  as  the  religion 
of  promise,  always  throwing  forward  into  the  com  ing  time  the  great 
light  of  the  Messianic  promise,  as  old  as  Abraham,  as  divine  as  the 
living  Christ,  as  continuous  as  the  presence  of  God's  Spirit,  that  the 
future  shall  be  better  than  the  past.  But  so  much  as  this  seems  already 
assured  that  human  thought  can  never  go  back  to  the  Deistic  concep- 
tion of  God  as  a  mechanician,  which  carried  to  its  logical  results  gives 
us  the  Epicurean  divinity,  shut  out  from  all  action  in  the  universe ;  nor 
to  the  conception  of  Duns  Scotus,  which  has  vitiated  theology  so  ex- 
tensively, that  God  is  supreme  will  or  arbitrary  power  instead  of  being 
supreme  Reason  energizing  everywhere ;  nor  to  the  attempt  to  carry 
theological  speculations  to  the  remotest  and  minutest  ramifications  of 
possible  inference  and  to  set  down  precise  answers  to  every  conceivable 
question.  And  we  confidently  expect  that  theology  will  turn  more  and 
more  to  the  living  Christ  and  inspire  that  love  to  man  and  practical  en- 
deavor for  human  welfare  which  characterized  the  earthly  life  of  Christ, 
are  set  forth  for  the  teaching  of  all  nations  in  the  incarnation,  and 
declared  by  him  to  be,  at  the  final  judgment,  the  test  of  character  of 
those  to  whom  his  gospel  may  come :  "  Inasmuch  as  ye  have  done  it, 
or  done  it  not,  to  one  of  the  least  of  these  my  brethren,  ye  have  done 
it,  or  done  it  not,  unto  me." 

Our  Saviour  himself  teaches,  not  only  that  his  kingdom  grows,  but 
that  it  grows  by  epochs :  "  first  the  blade,  then  the  ear,  after  that  the 
full  corn  in  the  ear."  These  are  epochs  in  the  growth  of  the  grain  ; 
not  that  it  grows  only  in  these  epochs,  but  that  its  continuous  growth 
naturally  manifests  itself  in  them.  And  our  Lord  teaches  that  the. 
growth  of  his  kingdom  is  accordant  with  the  same  law  of  growth. 

4.  It  should  also  be  noticed  that  Christian  progress  is  a  vital  growth, 
destructive  only  of  the  erroneous  or  effete,  retentive  of  the  truth.     The 
true  ideas  of  Hebrew,  Greek  and  Roman  thought  are  still  forces  in 
Christian  civilization ;  and  so  Christian  truth  must  live  and  work  in 
the  progress  of  man  forever. 

5.  The  common  representations  of  the  decay  of  Christian  faith  at 
the  present  day  are  greatly  exaggerated.     Carlyle  describes  the  age  as 
"  destitute  of  faith  and  yet  afraid  of  skepticism."     The  fact  that  the 
age  recoils  with  a  shudder  from  the  plunge  into  atheism,  which  it  sees 


344  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

would  be  indeed,  "  shooting  Niagara,"  is  rather  an  evidence  of  faith. 
Contrast  the  eagerness  with  which  the  French  Revolutionists  plunged 
into  Atheism  and  gloried  in  it.  And  it  is  far  from  being  true  that 
this  age  is  destitute  of  faith.  I  cannot  here  investigate  the  question. 
But  judging  from  the  growth  of  the  churches,  compared  with  that  of 
the  population,  the  activity  of  the  churches  in  propagating  Christianity 
at  home  and  abroad,  the  multiplicity  of  beneficent  enterprizes,  the 
energy  with  which  they  are  carried  forwards,  and  the  great  sums  of 
money  given  to  aid  them,  the  amount  of  thought,  reading  and  dis- 
cussion of  religious  subjects,  the  publication  of  sermons  in  newspapers 
and  otherwise,  the  fact  that  the  age  is  mainly  occupied  with  questions 
of  Christian  civilization,  such  as  the  political  rights  of  man,  the  eman- 
cipation and  subsequent  education  of  serfs  and  slaves,  the  condition 
of  the  laboring  classes,  and  the  like  social  questions,  the  suppression 
of  drunkenness  and  other  moral  questions,  I  think  it  safe  to  say  that 
Christianity  was  never  more  widely,  powerfully  and  beneficently  effi- 
cient in  the  world  than  it  is  to-day. 

If  religion  has  dropped  from  its  outward  manifestation  something  of 
its  sanctimoniousness,  if  its  speech  is  no  longer  in  the  cant  which  used 
sometimes  to  be  called  "  the  language  of  Canaan,"  if  it  turns  a  less 
forbidding  front  to  the  joyousness  of  youth  and  is  less  in  the  habit  of 
identifying  amusement  with  worldliness,  it  may  not  on  that  account  be 
less  imbued  with  the  self-sacrificing  love  which  spends  and  is  spent  in 
the  service  of  man  or  with  the  courageous  and  overcoming  faith  which 
waits  always  on  God  for  inspiration,  guidance  and  strength.  So  that 
we  may  be  beginning  to  realize  in  the  present  what  Matthew  Arnold 
sadly  sighed  for  as  a  bare  possibility  of  the  future : 

"  Years  hence  perhaps  may  dawn  an  age 

More  fortunate,  alas,  than  we, 
Which  without  hardness  may  be  sage, 
And  gay  without  frivolity." 


CHAPTER  XIV. 


THE  SENSIBILITIES:   THE  CONSTITUTION  OF  MAN  AS  SUS- 
CEPTIBLE OF  MOTIVES  AND  EMOTIONS. 


I  62.    Definition  and  Classification. 

THUS  far  I  have  been  examining  the  intellectual  constitution  of  man. 
As  the  result  of  these  investigations  we  have  reached  the  conclusion 
that  man  is  capable  of  empirical,  rationalistic  or  noetic,  and  theological 
science;  that  these  are  grades  of  knowledge  necessary  in  attaining 
knowledge  of  all  that  may  be  known  of  anything ;  that  they  are  re- 
ciprocally dependent  and  necessarily  in  harmony ;  that  in  theology  all 
science  finds  its  completeness,  its  unity  and  its  consummation;  and 
that  the  denial  of  the  reality  of  theological  knowledge  involves  the 
denial  of  the  reality  of  all  knowledge.  I  proceed  now  to  consider  the 
constitution  of  man  as  susceptible  of  motives  and  emotions,  that  is,  the 
Feelings  or  Sensibilities. 

I.  The  Sensibility  is  man's  constitutional  capacity  of  motives  and 
emotions.     The  motives  and  emotions  themselves  are  called  Sensibili- 
ties or  Feelings.     The  feelings  which  are  impulses  to  action  are  called 
motives.     The  emotions  are  simple  joy  or  sorrow,  pleasure  or  pain, 
which  do  not  impel  to  action.     If  I  may  use  a  figure  derived  from 
mechanics,  motives  are  dynamic,  moving  the  man  to  action ;  emotions 
are  static  conditions  in  which  the  man  simply  enjoys  or  sorrows,  feels 
pleasure  or  pain.     For   example,   hunger,  which  is  the  appetite  for 
food,  is  a  motive  to  get  food  and  eat  it ;  the  pleasure  of  eating  it  and 
of  the  satisfaction  of  the  appetite  is  an  emotion.     The  same  distinction 
pertains  to  all  the  sensibilities. 

II.  The  sensibilities  are  of  two  classes,  the  Natural  or  Psychical,  and 
the  Rational. 

The  Rational  Sensibilities  presuppose  the  exercise  of  the  Intuitive 
Reason.  They  pertain  to  the  fundamental  realities  or  ideas  of  Reason  : 
Truth,  Right  or  Law,  Ideal  Perfection,  the  Good  estimated  by  reason 
as  of  true  worth,  and  the  Absolute  Being  or  God.  Motives  and  emotions 
of  this  class  are  impossible  in  a  being  not  endowed  with  the  intuitive 
Reason. 

The  Natural  or  Psychical  Sensibilities  do  not  imply  the  exercise  of  in- 

845 


346  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM  . 

tuitive  reason,  but  are  possible  to  irrational  sentient  beings.  They  are 
common  to  man  and  the  brutes.  All  of  them  may  probably  be  found 
in  the  higher  orders  of  brutes. 

Both  classes  of  sensibilities  are  constitutional  in  man,  and  arise  spon- 
taneously and  involuntarily  when  the  appropriate  object  and  occasion 
are  present. 

III.   Among  the  natural  sensibilities  are  the  following : 

1.  The  instincts,  or  impulses  without  intelligence  to  do  what  intel- 
ligence, if  it  existed,  would  require.     Such  is  the  impulse  of  a  new- 
born lamb  or  babe  to  suck ;  or  of  a  young  fish-hawk  striking  a  fish, 
doing  what  to  intelligence  would  require  the  calculation  of  distance,  of 
refraction  of  light,  and  of  the  motion  of  the  hawk  and  the  fish. 

2.  The  impulse  to  exertion  with  no  object  ulterior  to  the  exertion  of 
the  faculties  and  the  counter  impulse  to  rest.     The  impulse  to  exertion 
impels  children  to  skip  and  jump,  and  to  constant  intellectual  activity. 
It  is  the  impulse  to  play.     Play  is  exertion  of  the  faculties  wTith  no  end 
ulterior  to  the  exertion  itself;  and  the  exertion  gives  pleasure  because 
it  is  the  satisfaction  of  a  natural  impulse.     Work,  on  the  contrary,  is 
the  exertion  of  the  faculties  for  some  end  ulterior  to  the   exertion, 
whether  the  exertion  itself  is  agreeable  or  not.     Riddles,  puzzles,  co- 
nundrums, chess,  and  similar  games  of  skill  are  intellectual  play. 

This  is  sometimes  called  the  Radical  impulse.  It  is  this  in  our  con- 
stitution which  makes  constant  employment  necessary,  and  afflicts  us  with 
ennui  when  we  have  nothing  to  do.  It  is  this  which  makes  men  dis- 
satisfied with  positions  in  which  they  cannot  put  all  their  faculties  into 
exercise  and  find  full  scope  for  all  their  energies.  It  is  this  which  pre- 
vents men  from  stopping  business  when  they  have  accumulated  wealth, 
and  impels  them  to  new  enterprises  and  new  risks.  When  this  impulse 
is  weak  in  a  young  man,  wre  say  he  has  no  ambition,  no  enterprise. 
Much  that  is  commonly  ascribed  to  covetousness,  or  selfish  ambition,  or 
other  sinister  motives,  may  often  be  more  truly  ascribed  to  this  radical 
impulse.  It  becomes  complicated  with  other  motives,  but  it  always 
remains  one  of  the  deepest  and  most  constant  springs  of  human  action. 

3.  Appetite  and  desires :  as  hunger  and  thirst,  the  desire  of  society,  of 
power,  of  esteem,  of  property,  of  knowledge,     A  desire  always  implies 
uneasiness  in  a  sense  of  want,  and  an  impulse  to  exertion  to  get  the  ob- 
ject desired.    Joy  in  getting  the  object  and  sorrow  in  missing  it,  are  con- 
sequent on  the  desire  of  the  object  and  would  be  impossible  without  it. 

4.  Natural  affection ;  altruistic  natural  sensibilities,  terminating  on 
another  and  not  on  self.    Desire  is  a  sense  of  wrant  impelling  the  person 
to  get  something  for  himself;  affection  is  a  sense  of  fullness  impelling 
him  to  impart  something  to  another. 

Natural  affections  are  of  two  kinds :  affections  of  affinity  or  sympa- 


THE  SENSIBILITIES:    MOTIVES  AND  EMOTIONS.  347 

thetic  affections,  as  parental,  filial  and  conjugal  love,  compassion  for  the 
distressed,  love  of  country,  and  the  like ;  affections  of  antipathy  or  repel- 
lent affections,  as  anger,  revenge,  fear,  and  antipathies  of  race. 

All  these  are  common  to  man  and  the  higher  orders  of  brutes. 

IV.    The  Rational  motives  and  emotions  are  the  five  following : 

The  Scientific,  pertaining  to  the  truth ; 

The  Moral,  pertaining  to  the  Right ; 

The  ^Esthetic,  pertaining  to  the  ideally  perfect ; 

The  Teleological,  pertaining  to  the  Good  which  reason  adjudges  to  be 
worthy  of  the  pursuit  and  enjoyment  of  rational  beings ; 

The  Religious,  pertaining  to  Absolute  being  or  God. 

These  have  been  noticed  sufficiently  for  my  purpose  in  discussing  the 
fundamental  ideas  of  Reason. 

\  63.    The  Desire  of  Happiness  as  a  Motive. 

According  to  this  analysis,  happiness  or  enjoyment  is  a  static  condi- 
tion and  is  not  a  motive  to  action.  When  a  man  is  happy,  his  happi- 
ness does  not  of  itself  move  him  to  seek  something  else ;  on  the  contrary, 
he  is  disposed  to  rest  in  his  happiness.  We  have  seen,  however,  that 
the  desire  of  happiness  may  be  a  motive  to  action ;  when  a  man  ab- 
stracts enjoyment  from  its  sources,  conditions  and  consequences,  and 
compares  simply  enjoyment  and  suffering,  he  naturally  desires  the 
former  rather  than  the  latter.  This  motive,  however,  involving  such  a 
process  of  abstraction,  cannot  be  a  frequent  motive  of  human  action. 
The  common  motives  are  the  instincts,  desires  and  affections,  the  physical 
and  rational  impulses  which  terminate  on  specific  objects.  We  see, 
then,  from  a  new  point  of  view  how  exceedingly  far  from  truth  is  the 
assertion,  already  disproved,  that  the  desire  of  happiness  is  the  ultimate 
motive  of  all  moral  action. 

We  may  also  notice  here  an  important  fact  that  so  far  as  the  desire  of 
enjoyment  does  supplant  other  motives  and  become  the  ruling  motive 
of  action,  it  becomes  morbid  and  hurtful.  And  this  the  whole  history 
of  the  world  verifies.  This  is  the  very  characteristic  of  a  period  of 
luxury  and  effeminacy ;  people  make  the  most  diligent  study  of  ways  to 
enjoy  themselves.  They  live  for  that  end.  And  while  debasing  them- 
selves, they  miss  the  enjoyment.  Apicius  could  not  sleep  because  the 
rose-leaves  lay  too  thickly  on  him.  From  the  same  source  come  the 
selfishness  and  sensitiveness  of  excessive  refinement  and  delicacy.  So 
in  aesthetics,  when  persons  begin  to  seek  enjoyment,  they  cease  to  ad- 
mire the  beauty  and  miss  the  enjoyment.  One  who  walks  abroad  scene- 
hunting,  does  not  find  nor  enjoy  the  beauty  of  nature  ;  and  great  gal- 
leries are  a  weariness  to  him  who  is  seeking  enjoyment  instead  of 
sincerely  admiring  beauty. 


348  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

When  enjoyment,  which  is  legitimately  the  consequent  of  following 
some  motive,  itself  supplants  the  motive,  it  becomes  a  morbid  and  dan- 
gerous desire  of  excitement.  For  example,  one  has  an  appetite  for  food 
and  he  enjoys  eating.  Suppose  now  that  his  mind  fixes  on  the  pleasure 
of  eating  and  he  desires  that,  instead  of  desiring  food ;  then  he  becomes 
an  epicure,  a  gourmand ;  he  devises  ways  to  increase  and  prolong  the 
pleasure  of  eating,  even  to  the  disgusting  device  of  the  Romans — 
wmere  post  coenam.  And  thus  he  spoils  his  enjoyment.  Similar  is  the 
result  of  the  use  of  alcoholic  drinks.  The  drinker  ceases  to  enjoy  the 
drink ;  he  seeks  the  excitement.  Similar  is  the  mental  intoxication  of 
excessive  novel- reading.  Similar  is  the  result  in  the  religious  life,  when 
one  no  longer  seeks  God  and  lives  to  serve  men,  but  seeks  the  exhilara- 
tion of  religious  enjoyment.  And  the  result,  in  all  these  most  diverse 
and  yet  similar  cases,  is  to  deaden  the  sensibilities,  to  benumb  the  capa- 
city of  enjoyment  and  to  create  a  necessity  for  more  highly-spiced  con- 
diments, for  more  sensational  stories — and  sermons — and  to  destroy 
the  susceptibility  to  the  joys  of  common  life. 

2  64.    Feeling  a  Source  of  Knowledge. 

The  feelings  are  a  source  of  knowledge  in  the  following  particulars : 

Feeling  is  always  conscious  feeling.  A  pain  or  pleasure  of  which  the 
person  is  unconscious  would  not  be  a  pain  or  pleasure ;  it  would  not  be 
a  feeling.  In  this  sense  feeling  is  a  kind  of  knowing. 

Man  has  knowledge  of  objects  through  feeling.  In  sensation  man 
perceives  the  outward  object ;  in  sorrow  man  is  conscious  of  himself  as 
sorrowing.  So  when  God's  Spirit  works  in  the  human  spirit,  in  the 
spiritual  motives  and  emotions  man  may  know  God ;  and  thus  that  may 
be  "spiritually  discerned"  which  is  "foolishness-"  to  "the  natural 
man." 

Feelings  may  be  a  source  of  knowledge  by  our  inferring  their  cause 
or  object.  An  instinct  indicates  a  corresponding  reality.  A  young 
bird's  instinct  to  fly  indicates  the  possibility  of  flying;  a  rabbit's 
instinctive  timidity  indicates  the  reality  of  danger;  a  sinner's  spon- 
taneous fear  of  judgment  indicates  the  reality  of  moral  law  and 
government. 

They  are  also  motives  interesting  us  in  seeking  knowledge.  And  on 
the  feelings,  candor  and  impartiality  in  the  investigation  of  facts  and 
truth  depend. 


CHAPTER  XV. 
THE  WILL. 


\  65.    Definition. 

I.  THE  will  is  the  power  of  a  person,  in  the  light  of  reason  and  with 
susceptibility  to  the  influence  of  rational  motives,  to  determine  the  ends 
or  objects  to  which  he  will  direct  his  energy,  and  the  exertion  of  his 
energy  with  reference  to  the  determined  end  or  object. 

II.  The  will  is  a  person's  power  of  self-determination.     It  is  his 
power  of  determining   the    exercise  of  his  own  causal  efficiency  or 
energy.     He  can  determine  the  object  or  end  to  which  he  will  direct  it ; 
he  can  exert  it  or  call  it  into  action  when  he  will ;  he  can  refrain  from 
exerting  it  when  he  will.     He  has  power  of  self-direction,  self-exertion 
and  self-restraint.     This  power  is  the  will.     Its  function  is  to  deter- 
mine the  exercise  of  power.     Its  acts  are  determinations.    We   call 
it  the  power  of  self-determination. 

1.  The  determinations  of  the  will  are  of  two  kinds — Choice  and 
Volition. 

In  choice  a  person  determines  the  object  or  end  to  which  he  will  di- 
rect his  energies. 

In  volition  a  person  exerts  his  energies  or  calls  them  into  action ;  or 
he  refuses  to  do  so.  Volition  is  a  determination  because  a  person  ex- 
erts his  energies  or  refrains  from  exerting  them  at  will.  He  determines 
whether  to  exert  them  or  not.  The  motor  force  of  a  stone,  on  the  con- 
trary, is  not  exerted  by  the  stone,  but  is  communicated  to  it. 

Choice  is  self-direction.  Volition  is  self-exertion  or  self-restraint. 
Both  are  self-determinations. 

2.  The  will  must  be  distinguished  from  the  causal  efficiency  or  power 
whose  action  the  will  determines.     Every  determination  of  will  pre- 
supposes that  the  person  is  constitutionally  endowed  with  causal  effi- 
ciency or  potency.     The  existence  of  power  or  efficiency  is  essential  to 
the  very  conception  of  a  will.     If  there  is  no  power  to  be  exerted  and 
directed,  there  can  be  no  will  to  exert  and  direct  it.     But  causal  effi- 
ciency is  not  a  distinctive  peculiarity  of  will.     Material  objects  have 
causal  efficiency.     They,  however,  cannot  direct  it,  nor  exert  or  refrain 
from  exerting  it  of  themselves.     Electricity  is  a  power.     But  it  cannot 

349 


350  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

determine  the  direction  nor  the  exertion  of  its  energy.  The  lightning 
cannot  select  the  tree  which  it  will  strike  nor  determine  when  it  will 
exert  its  energy  and  strike  it.  The  distinctive  peculiarity  of  will  is 
that  it  is  a  power  capable  of  choosing  the  end  or  object  to  which  it 
will  direct  its  energy  and  of  exerting  or  refraining  to  exert  its  energy. 
Man  constitutionally  has  intellectual  power ;  he  knows  and  thinks. 
His  will  does  not  create  this  power  of  knowing  and  thinking;  it 
simply  chooses  the  object  of  thought  and  exerts  the  intellectual  power 
upon  it  in  fixed  attention.  Man  by  his  constitution  has  physical  power. 
His  will  does  not  create  this  physical  power ;  it  simply  selects  its  ob- 
ject and  exerts  the  power  in  the  direction  determined.  Both  the  in- 
tellectual and  the  physical  powers  are  trained  and  developed  under 
this  exercise.  But  the  will  does  not  create  this  constitutional  capacity 
of  growth ;  it  merely  exerts  and  directs  the  powers  so  that  the  growth 
is  realized. 

While,  then,  the  will  presupposes  power  or  causal  efficiency,  it  is  not 
merely  that.  The  power  becomes  will  only  when  of  itself  it  can  deter- 
mine the  end  for  which  it  will  act,  and  can  exert  its  energies  or  refrain 
from  exerting  them  for  the  chosen  end. 

3.  The  determinations  of  the  will  are  distinguished  from  the  sensi- 
bilities.   They  are  neither  motives  nor  emotions ;  they  are  distinct  from 
all  instincts,  desires,  affections,  from  all  the  optative  part  of  human 
nature,  from  all  the  sensibilities,  whether  natural  or  rational.     Hunger 
is  a  motive  to  seek  food  and  eat.     But  hunger  is  not  the  choice  of  fish 
instead  of  meat  for  dinner,  nor  is  it  the  determination  to  go  fishing  in 
order  to  get  it. 

Man  is  the  subject  of  many  motives  impelling  him  to  many  and  often 
incompatible  objects  or  ends  of  action.  Impelled  by  these  motives,  man 
by  his  will  determines  among  all  these  objects  one  to  which  he  will 
direct  his  action.  The  'choice  of  the  will  stands  forth  entirely  distinct 
from  the  motives  and  the  emotions,  and  determines  the  action.  If  the 
man's  end  and  course  of  action  are  determined  by  his  feelings,  he  has 
no  free-will.  He  simply  follows,  as  a  brute,  the  impulse  of  nature 
which  at  the  moment  is  strongest. 

4.  The  determinations  of  the  will  must  be  distinguished  from  the 
determinations  and  conclusions  of  the  intellect.     A  determination  by 
the  intellect  is  simply  a  definition.     It  is  noting  in  thought  the  limits 
or  boundaries  of  anything,  as  its  form  and  position  in  space,  or  its  date 
and  duration  in  time ;  or  it  is  noting  the  qualities  of  a  particular  con- 
crete reality,  or  the  contents  of  a  logical  concept  or  general  notion. 
Less  properly  the  comparison  of  objects  concluding  in  a  judgment  is 
called  an  intellectual  determination ;  as  one  compares  different  courses 
of  action  and  judges  one  of  them  to  be  the  right  one,  or  the  expedient, 


^T!B^ 

V  <>V    THTC  *f 


:HE 

/TiT  -NT  T  i 

THE  WILL. 

VAl».OT 

or  the  agreeable ;  or  he  compares  different  objects 

the  most  beautiful  or  the  most  desirable. 

This,  however,  is  a  determination  merely  of  the  thought,  not  of  the 
efficient  energies ;  it  concludes  merely  in  a  judgment,  not  in  a  choice  or 
a  volition.  A  man  may  be  intellectually  convinced  that  one  of  several 
courses  of  action  is  right,  and  yet  determine  to  take  the  contrary ;  he 
may  be  intellectually  convinced  that  a  certain  character  is  perfect,  or 
that  the  possession  of  a  certain  object  would  be  agreeable,  and  yet  not 
choose  the  character  or  object  as  the  end  to  be  attained  by  action.  In 
the  determinations  of  the  will  is  something  other  than  the  determina- 
tions of  the  intellect.  The  will  determines  not  thought,  but  the  efficient 
energies.  In  its  choice  of  an  object  it  directs  the  energies  upon  the 
chosen  object  as  the  end  of  action  ;  in  its  volition  it  exerts  them  or  calls 
them  into  action ;  it  controls  them  whether  in  action  or  at  rest,  whether 
potencies  or  energies. 

III.  Power  is  constituted  will  by  being  endowed  with  Reason.  A 
rational  power  is  a  will.  Because  man  is  rational  he  is  able  to  compare 
all  ends  and  methods  and  motives  of  action  and  determine  among  them 
the  motive  which  he  will  follow,  the  ends  for  which  he  will  act,  and 
when,  where  and  how  he  will  exert  his  energies  for  the  end  chosen.  A 
Power  endowed  with  Reason  is  self-directive  in  choice  and  self-exertive 
in  volition ;  in  both  it  is  self-determining. 

Will  is  the  name  of  the  mind  itself  considered  as  self-determining ; 
just  as  Reason  is  the  mind  itself  considered  as  rational.  The  names 
designate  two  aspects  or  powers  of  the  person,  yet  but  one  indivisible 
person.  If  you  regard  the  person  as  Will,  he  is  a  rational  Will.  If 
you  regard  him  as  Reason,  he  is  an  energizing  and  self-determining 
Reason ;  or,  as  Kant  says,  "  The  Will  is  nothing  other  than  the  Prac- 
tical Reason." 

That  rationality  is  of  the  essence  of  will,  that  power  is  constituted 
will  by  rationality,  is  a  fact  of  fundamental  importance,  and  is  .a  clew 
that  guides  us  through  the  maze  of  controversy  on  the  subject.  Had 
this  fact  been  appreciated,  the  confusion  of  tongues  in  discussing  the 
freedom  of  the  will  might  not  have  been  inflicted  on  us.  Prof.  Henry 
P.  Tappan,  for  example,  and  others  define  the  will  as  mere  power,  and 
thus,  while  advocating  free-will,  identify  it  with  a  necessary  force 
of  nature. 

I  66.    Choice  and  Volition. 

I.  The  distinction  of  choice  and  volition  is  a  real  one.  It  is  not, 
however,  commonly  formulated  in  the  discussion  of  the  will,  and  the 
names  choice  and  volition  are  not  commonly  recognized  as  designating 
two  kinds  of  determination,  the  determination  of  the  object  or  end  of 
the  action,  and  of  the  exertion  of  the  powers  in  action  for  the  end 


352  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

chosen.     I   regard   the   distinction   as   indispensable   to    a    clear   and 
thorough  knowledge  of  the  will  and  of  moral  responsibility. 
1.  It  is  clearly  recognized  in  consciousness. 

If  we  reflect  on  our  own  determinations,  it  is  plain  that  we  are  not 
limited  to  determining  to  exert  or  not  to  exert  our  energies,  but  that  we 
also  determine  the  object  for  which  we  exert  them.  It  is  also  plain,  on 
the  other  hand,  that  the  power  bf  determination  is  not  limited  to  choos- 
ing the  object  of  action ;  for  man  is  conscious  that  he  exerts  his  energies 
and  arrests  their  exertion  by  his  own  volition.  Man  is  conscious  of 
will-power  that  is  both  self-directing  and  self-exerting.  For  example,  a 
man  is  invited  to  go  to  a  picnic.  He  chooses  between  the  value  repre- 
sented by  the  day's  wages  and  the  saving  of  the  expense  of  the  picnic, 
on  the  one  hand,  and  the  pleasure  of  the  excursion.  Having  chosen 
the  day's  wages,  he  sets  himself  to  work  and  saws  wood  all  day  to  earn 
it.  He  is  conscious  of  the  distinction  between  his  choice  of  the  wages 
and  his  volitions  exerting  his  strength  in  earning  it.  A  young  man 
chooses  between  learning,  wealth  and  political  preferment  as  the  object 
of  his  life-work.  This  choice  is  obviously  diiferent  from  the  volitions 
to  exert  his  powers  day  after  day  and  year  after  year  in  striving  to  win 
his  chosen  object. 

2.  The  distinction  is  essential  to  the  reality  of  free-will  and  moral 
responsibility.     If  will  is  merely  the  volitional  power  of  calling  the 
energies  into  action,  then  we  no  longer  determine  by  free-will  the  ends 
or  objects  of  action;  and  these  are  determined  by  the  constitutional 
impulses  or  motives  which  at  the  time  are  strongest.     And  thus  all 
freedom  both  of  choice  and  volition  disappears,  since  the  man  has  no 
power  of  self-direction  and  can  exert  his  energies  only  in  the  direction 
already  determined  for  him  by  the  unreasoning  impulses  of  nature. 
Hence  Socrates,  in  the  Gorgias,  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  men  do 
not  merely  will  their  action,  but  rather  the  object  for  which  they  act. 
II.    Choice  may  be  further  explained  as  follows : 
1.  The  object  or  end  determined  by  choice  is  always  that  to  which 
the  energies  are  to  be  devoted  in  action.     It  is  never  a  mere  preference 
of  taste  or  feeling  without  reference  to  action ;  as  one  relishes  peaches 
more  than  apples,  or  prefers  Homer  to  Virgil  as  a  matter  bf  taste.     It 
is  always  a  determination  of  the  object  of  action ;  as  one  chooses  peaches 
in  preference  to  other  fruit  for  a  dessert  and  goes  and  buys  them ;  or 
chooses  Homer  for  his  evening's  recreation  and  takes  it  down  and  reads 
it.     And  this  nullifies  Prof.  Calderwood's  criticism  of  Edwards  on  this 
point :  "  Will  is  a  power  of  control  over  the  faculties  and  capacities  of 
our  nature,  by  means  of  which  we  are  enabled  to  determine  personal 
activity.     It  is  to  be  carefully  observed  that  will  is  control  of  our  own 
powers,  not  of  external  things.     Edwards  has  quite  overlooked  this  in 


THE  WILL.  353 

his  definition,  '  Will  is  that  which  chooses  anything."  This  he  says 
must  be  corrected ;  it  is  "  choosing  forms  of  activity  or  action,  not 
things."*  The  truth  is,  on  the  contrary,  that  it  is  chcosing  the 
objects  of  action,  not  its  forms  merely ;  but  the  object  is  chosen  only 
as  an  object  of  action.  It  is  a  singular  error  to  suppose  that  choice 
of  an  object  implies  an  act-  of  control  over  "  external  things."  It 
is  simply  the  choice  of  the  object  of  action ;  it  determines  the  end 
or  object  for  which  we  will  exert  our  powers.  Hence  the  choice  of 
the  object  is  in  itself  the  determination  of  the  direction  of  our  activity. 

2.  The  act  cf  choosing  is  as  follows : 

First,  it  presupposes  in  the  intellect  a  comparison  of  objects  in  the 
light,  of  reason  and  with  susceptibility  to  the  influence  of  rational  mo- 
tives. In  a  rational  being  the  rational  sensibilities  stand  always  over 
against  the  natural  instincts,  desires  and  affections ;  and  these  open  to 
man  two  spheres  of  activity  with  their  respective  and  contrasted  objects 
between  which  he  can  choose.  A  choice  presupposes  a  comparison  of 
objects  in  the  light  of  reason.  The  actual  choice  in  a  given  case  may 
be  between  objects  of  the  natural  appetites,  desires  or  affections ;  as  be- 
tween two  different  articles  of  food.  But  even  in  this  case  choice  in 
the  proper  sense  of  the  term  is  possible  only  because  the  man  is  en- 
dowed with  reason,  and  thus  is  able  to  compare  objects  in  the  light  of 
reason  and  under  the  influence  of  rational  motives,  and  then  to  deter- 
mine which  shall  be  the  object  of  his  action.  Otherwise  he  would 
simply  be  driven  by  the  strongest  impulse  without  the  possibility  of  a 
choice.  If  he  chooses  that  for  which  he  has  the  keenest  relish,  the 
choice  is  still  a  free  determination  of  the  will  and  not  a  helpless  follow- 
ing of  appetite. 

Secondly,  after  the  comparison  follows  the  choice,  which  is  the 
simple,  indefinable  determination  of  the  will.  Before  the  man,  in  the 
clear  light  of  reason,  lie  all  the  objects  which  he  has  been  comparing 
and  all  the  motives,  rational  or  natural,  which  impel  him  to  these 
various  objects.  Wide  is  his  range  of  choice.  He  may  choose  that 
which  reason  approves  and  to  which  rational  motives  impel,  and  be 
in  character  like  God ;  or,  disregarding  reason,  he  may  choose  that  to 
which  sensuous  appetite  impels,  and  be  as  a  brute ;  or  that  to  which 
malignity  and  hate  impel,  and  be  as  a  devil.  He  can  choose,  among 
all  these  objects,  one  as  the  object  of  action ;  can  determine  which  of 
the  conflicting  motives  he  will  follow.  And  this  is  a  determination  by 
his  will,  directing  his  energies  to  an  object  or  end.  The  choice  is  a 
simple  indefinable  determination,  known  only  by  the  consciousness 
of  it  in  experience. 

*  Manual  of  Moral  Philosophy,  pp.  165,  178. 

23 


354  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

Mr.  Hazard  and  Professor  Bowen*  deny  that  there  is  a  determina- 
tion of  the  will  here,  and  recognize  only  the  intellectual  acts  of  com- 
paring and  judging.  Mr.  Bowen  says,  totally  misconceiving  the  whole 
action  and  leaving  no  place  for  free  determination :  "  Determination 
as  a  phenomenon  of  choice  is  a  function  of  the  understanding  and  takes 
place  in  view  of  reasons  miscalled  motives,  though  as  consciousness 
attests,  not  under  compulsion  by  them."  But  that  choice  is  a  deter- 
mination of  will  and  not  merely  an  intellectual  comparison,  and  that 
it  is  a  determination  between  objects  to  which  man  is  impelled  by 
motive-sensibilities  natural  or  rational,  motives  which  are  not  mere 
"  reasons "  intellectually  apprehended,  is  evident  from  the  notorious 
fact  that  a  person  often  chooses  his  object  in  accordance  with  appe- 
tite, desire  or  passion,  and  in  defiance  of  the  mandates  of  reason  and 
the  judgment  in  which  the  intellectual  comparison  concludes,  and  so 
chooses  what  he  knows  is  contrary  both  to  his  duty  and  his  welfare. 

Thirdly,  after  the  determination,  the  signs  or  manifestations  of  the 
choice  are  two :  volitions  to  act  in  the  direction  of  the  choice,  and 
complacency  or  pleasure  in  the  object  preferred,  so  that  the  action  is  in 
spontaneity  and  not  from  constraint  or  restraint. 

3.  A  choice  is  an  abiding  determination  of  the  will.     It  may  abide 
for  an  hour  or  day;  it  may  be  a  life-long  choice  or  preference.     It 
abides,  however,  as  always  a  free  choice,  not  as  a  disposition  or  affection 
which  is  a  necessity  of  nature. 

4.  Choices  may  be  distinguished  by  their  objects  as  supreme  and  sub- 
ordinate.    A  subordinate  choice  is  the  choice  of  an  object  as  sub- 
ordinate to  an  ulterior  end ;  as  when  one  chooses  wealth  as  an  object 
of  pursuit,  but  chooses  it  simply  as  a  means  of  political  preferment. 
The  supreme  choice  is  the  choice  of  the  supreme  end  of  action,  to 
which  all  other  ends  are  subordinate  and  which  itself  is  subordinate  to 
no  ulterior  end. 

Because  man  is  rational  he  must  choose  some  supreme  end ;  for  he 
recognizes  reason  as  supreme ;  all  his  thinking  culminates  in  finding 
the  unity  of  the  manifold,  and  in  the  conduct  of  life  reason  requires 
him  to  bring  his  whole  activity  into  unity,  in  harmony  with  rational 
truths,  laws,  ideals  and  ends,  and  in  consecration  to  that  end  which 
reason  sets  forth  as  supreme.  The  choice  of  a  supreme  object  of  action 
and  the  unity  of  life  and  character  in  the  subordination  of  all  other 
objects  and  of  all  activity  to  it,  is  essential  in  the  moral  life  of  a  rational 
being. 

III.   A  volition,  as  I  have  defined  it,  is  an  executive  or  exertive  act 

*  Hazard  on  Freedom  of  Mind  in  Willing :   pp.  175,  184,  180,  189,  60.    Bowen's 
History  of  Philosophy,  p.  300. 


THE  WILL.  355 

of  will  which  immediately  calls  the  energies  into  action :  as  the  volition 
to  lift  my  hand,  to  throw  a  stone,  or  to  examine  a  plant.  An  exertive 
volition  is  in  its  nature  ictic ;  it  ceases  with  the  action  which  it  calls 
forth. 

If  we  attend  more  closely  to  our.  mental  acts  we  perceive  that  we 
also  make  determinations  to  act  which  are  abiding.  They  are  what  we 
call  intentions,  purposes,  resolutions,  and  so  distinguish  them  from 
choices  or  elective  preferences.  As  determinations  to  act  and  not  choices 
of  objects,  they  are  of  the  nature  of  volitions,  and  may  be  called  immanent 
volitions ;  volitions  would  then  be  distinguished  as  exertive  or  executive, 
and  immanent.  The  man  who  to-day  chooses  to-morrow's  wages  in 
preference  to  the  pleasure  of  an  excursion,  in  that  very  choice  deter- 
mines to  work  to-morrow  and  earn  the  wages.  So  soon  as  he  has  chosen 
the  wages,  he  says,  I  am  determined  to  work  to-morrow.  A  choice 
always  manifests  itself  in  a  purpose  to  act  in  accordance  with  the  choice ; 
and  the  action  will  begin  immediately  if  the  man  sees  that  immediate 
action  is  required  to  attain  the  end.  In  the  case  of  the  laborer,  he 
must  wait  till  to-morrow  before  he  can  begin  his  work.  But  his  deter- 
mination to  work  remains.  So  when  a  man  has  chosen  his  profession, 
his  determination  to  educate  himself  for  it  abides  through  the  years  of 
professional  study,  and  his  determination  to  practice  it  abides  through 
life.  This  determination  does  not  of  itself  strike  so  deep  into  the 
springs  of  action  as  a  choice ;  for  it  is  only  a  determination  to  do  certain 
actions,  while  the  choice  is  the  preference  or  determination  of  the  object 
of  the  action.  Such  a  determination  or  resolution  has  a  proverbial 
lack  of  tenacity ;  men  "  resolve,  and  reresolve,  and  die  the  same,"  because 
the  resolution  is  only  a  determination  to  act.-  If  it  is  dissociated  from 
the  choice  which  fixes  the  heart  on  the  object,  and  if  then  appetite, 
desire  or  passion  stirs  and  tempts  to  the  contrary,  the  resolution  gives 
way  like  a  cotton  thread  in  a  flame.  The  choice,  fixing  the  heart  on  the 
object  and  making  the  exertion  spontaneous  and  joyous,  has  a  power  to 
resist  and  subdue  the  natural  passions. 

It  may  be  objected  that  it  is  an  over-refined  analysis  to  distinguish 
this  abiding  determination  to  act,  from  the  choice.  It  is  true  that  the 
choice  of  the  object  of  action  ipso  facto  determines  the  direction  of  the 
action  to  the  object  chosen ;  and  I  do  not  wish  to  dispute  about  names. 
The  point  of  practical  importance  is,  that  a  determination  to  act,  how- 
ever abiding,  if  dissociated  from  the  choice  of  the  object,  is  not  a  deter- 
mination of  the  will  in  its  full  significance.  The  former  without  the 
latter  must  be  superficial  and  weak.  Certainly  the  choice  of  God  as 
the  supreme  object  of  service  must  always  be  distinguished  from  the 
various  acts  of  service  which  I  render  to  him  and  from  my  abiding 
purpose  to  render  them;  the  choice  of  my  neighbor  as  the  object  of 


356  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL   BASIS   OF  THEISM. 

service  equally  with  myself,  must  always  be  distinguishable  from  my 
acts  of  service  to  him  and  from  my  purpose  to  do  those  acts. 

It  has  been  objected  that  the  distinction  implies  that  the  supreme 
choice  of  God  and  the  immanent  purpose  to  serve  him  may  exist,  while 
yet  the  actual  service  is  put  off  to  a  future  time.  This  is  a  misrepre- 
sentation. Choice  spontaneously  manifests  itself  in  accordant  volitional 
action.  In  all  choices  the  purpose  to  act  accordantly  is  immediate  and 
continuous ;  but  in  a  subordinate  choice  the  actual  exertion  may  be  put 
off  through  lack  of  fit  opportunity.  In  the  supreme  choice  of  God  any 
particular  act  of  service  may  be  put  off  for  the  same  reason ;  as  a  young 
man  purposing  to  go  to  China  as  a  missionary  puts  off  his  actual  going 
till  he  gets  through  college  and  the  professional  school.  But  the  actual 
exertion  of  all  the  energies  in  the  service  of  God  never  needs  be  put 
off  for  such  a  reason,  because  a  man  is>required  to  serve  God  in  what- 
ever he  does.  There  needs  be  no  delay  in  breaking  off  one's  sins  by 
righteousness ;  and  if  the  imagined  choice  of  God  does  not  immediately 
manifest  itself  thus,  it  is  proved  to  be  not  a  real  choice  of  God.  I  have 
already  shown  that  a  choice  is  not  a  mere  preference  of  one  thing  to 
another,  but  it  is  the  choice  of  an  object  to  which  the  activity  is  'to  be 
directed.  It  is,  therefore,  of  the  essence  of  choice  that  it  spontaneously 
expresses  itself  in  an  abiding  determination  to  act  in  accordance  with 
the  choice  and  in  accordant  actual  exertion  of  energy  whenever  there  is 
fit  opportunity. 

IV.  A  volition  is  not  a  complete  determination,  but  is  the  expression 
of  a  choice.  The  choice  of  the  object  of  action  is  the  fundamental 
determination,  of  which  the  volition  is  the  manifestation  and  expression. 
If  man  has  only  volitional  power  or  power  to  exert  his  energies  and  has 
no  power  of  choosing  the  ends  or  objects  of  his  action,  then  his  only 
freedom  is  freedom  to  do  as  he  pleases ;  but  what  he  pleases  is  necessa- 
rily determined  by  the  unreasoning  impulse  of  feeling  which  at  the  time 
is  the  strongest.  Much  of  the  confusion,  in  the  discussion  of  the  will 
has  arisen  from  the  error  that  a  volition  to  do  an  action  is  the  deepest 
and  only  determination. 

It  may  be  asked  whether  a  choice  may  not  be  made  between  two 
actions  or  courses  of  action.  Undoubtedly  two  proposed  acts  or  courses 
of  action  may  be  compared  as  objects  of  thought,  and  one  of  them  may 
be  determined  on  by  the  will  in  preference  to  the  other.  But  if  we 
consider  further  wre  shall  see  that  the  determination  of  the  action  has 
been  made  in  choosing  an  object  of  action.  If  I  haye  determined  to  go 
to  New  York  for  the  attainment  of  a  chosen  object,  as  the  pleasure  of 
seeing  a  friend  or  the  money  to  be  gained  by  transacting  a  business,  I 
may  then  determine  whether  I  will  go  on  horseback,  or  by  railroad,  or 
by  steamboat.  If  I  choose  to  go  on  horseback,  it  will  be  for  the  plea- 


THE  WILL.  357 

sure  and  health  to  be  gained  by  it ;  if  by  steamboat,  it  may  be  for  the 
coolness  and  pleasure  of  the  sail,  or,  if  in  the  night,  for  securing  the 
gains  of  a  day's  business ;  if  by  rail,  for  the  company  of  a  friend  or  the 
saving  made  by  greater  expedition.  So  that  the  determination  to  act  is 
still  dependent  on  the  choice  of  an  object  and  is  a  manifestation  or 
expression  of  the  choice. 

§  67.    Ethical  Application. 

This  is  not  the  place  for  the  discussion  of  ethics ;  but  for  the  further 
elucidation  of  the  doctrine  of  the  will  I  will  briefly  notice  some  of  its 
ethical  applications. 

I.  The  object  of  the  supreme  choice  is  always  a  person  or  persons  to 
be  trusted  and  served,  not  any  thing,  quality,  power  or  condition  to  be 
acquired,  possessed,  used  and  enjoyed. 

The  objects  or  ends  of  action  among  which  choice  is  possible  lie  in 
these  two  spheres.  There  are  persons  to  be  trusted  or  served ;  there  are 
things,  qualities,  powers  and  conditions  to  be  acquired,  possessed,  used 
and  enjoyed. 

In  the  sphere  of  objects  to  be  acquired,  that  which  ought  to  be  chosen 
as  the  ultimate  and  highest  end  is  well-being,  or  the  good  estimated  by 
reason  as  having  true  worth ;  and  all  things,  qualities,  powers  and  con- 
ditions, which  are  the  legitimate  means  or  conditions  of  attaining  the 
true  and  highest  good,  are  rightly  chosen  as  relative  good. 

But  the  object  of  the  supreme  choice  can  never  be  in  the  sphere  of 
objects  to  be  acquired,  possessed,  used  and  enjoyed.  For  the  further 
question  arises:  for  whom  is  the  object  acquired,  for  myself  or  for 
another?  Thus  beyond  all  objects  that  are  acquired  and  used,  there  is 
always  and  necessarily  a  higher  and  supreme  object — the  person  for 
whom  the  objects,  that  may  be  possessed,  used  and  enjoyed,  are  to  be 
acquired.  Therefore  the  object  of  a  supreme  choice,  whether  morally 
right  or  wrong,  must  always  be  a  person  or  persons  to  be  trusted  or 
served,  not  any  thing,  quality  or  condition  to  be  acquired,  possessed, 
used  and  enjoyed. 

This  is  evident,  also,  because  a  person  is  essentially  by  virtue  of  his 
personality  in  himself  an  end  of  action,  a  being  to  be  trusted  and  served, 
never  an  object  to  be  acquired,  possessed  and  used.  So  our  Lord 
teaches  that  the  sum  total  of  all  worldly  values  is  not  equal  to  the 
worth  of  a  man.  He  has  a  dignity  beyond  all  price.  A  person  by 
virtue  of  his  personality  has  rights.  Something  is  due  to  him  from 
)ther  persons ;  they  owe  him  duty.  The  object  of  the  supreme  choice 
to  which  the  whole  activity  is  to  be  consecrated  cannot  be  anything 
which  is  a  means  to  an  end  ;  it  must  be  that  which  is  an  end  in  itself 
and  unconditionally.  A  person  only  is  thus  an  end.  A  person,  there- 


358  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

fore,  must  be  the  object  of  the  supreme  choice,  whether  that  choice  be 
morally  right  or  wrong. 

Hence  the  true  good  itself  is  not  the  object  of  a  right  supreme  choice. 
For  the  true  good  is  nothing  real  except  as  the  good  of  a  person  ;  and 
the  choice  of  it  is  impossible  except  as  it  is  chosen  for  some  person. 

II.  The  object  of  a  right  supreme  choice  is  God  in  his  relation  to  all 
personal  beings  in  the  universal  moral  system.  Or,  it  is  God  and  all 
rational  beings  in  their  real  relations  in  the  unity  of  the  universal 
rational  and  moral  system. 

Here  it  may  be  objected  that  the  right  supreme  choice  must  be  the 
consent  of  the  will  to  the  reason ;  the  acceptance  by  the  will  of  the 
truths,  laws,  ideals  and  ends  of  Reason  as  regulative  of  the  whole 
activity ;  and  that  the  wrong  supreme  choice  must  be  the  refusal  by  the 
will  of  this  consent.  This  accords  with  Kant's  ethics,  that  the  right 
moral  character  consists  in  reverence  for  law,  in  the  doing  of  duty.  It 
is  true  that  the  right  supreme  choice  carries  in  it  the  consent  of  the  will 
to  the  law ;  that  so  far  as  action  is  distinctively  moral  it  involves  the 
recognition  of  law,  obligation  and  duty ;  and  that  the  right  character 
involves  the  fixed  purpose  of  the  will  to  do  all  duty.  This,  however,  is 
only  a  partial  and  incomplete  description  of  a  right  moral  character. 
For,  in  the  first  place,  it  is  only  a  resolution  to  perform  actions.  It 
thus  remains  no  more  than  an  immanent  volition.  It  has  not  in  it  that 
which  alone  is  the  real  determination,  the  choice  of  the  object  of  action. 
And,  besides  this,  the  will  cannot  consent  to  the  formal  principle  of  the 
law  otherwise  than  in  the  act  of  love  to  God  and  man  which  the  real 
principle  of  the  law  requires.  And,  further,  the  universe  is  not  abstract, 
but  concrete ;  it  is  a  universe  of  being.  All  knowledge,  thought  and 
causal  energy  are  attributes  of  being  and  terminate  on  being  as  their 
object.  But  the  objection  makes  the  supreme  act  of  will  which  deter- 
mines the  whole  course  of  action  and  the  whole  moral  character  and 
destiny  of  the  man,  terminate  in  abstract  ideas  of  law  and  duty.  Vir- 
tue thus  defined  lacks  reality. 

We  must,  then,  look  beyond  this  to  the  realm  of  personal  beings  to 
find  the  object  of  the  right  supreme  choice.  The  Absolute  Reason  is 
God.  In  him  all  truth,  law,  ideals  and  good  are  eternal.  The  object 
of  the  right  supreme  choice,  which  determines  man's  moral  character  in 
the  whole  course  of  his  activity,  is  God.  He  is  chosen  as  the  supreme 
object  of  trust  and  service. 

God,  however,  does  not  exist  alone,  but  in  relation  to  the  universe  in 
which  he  is  expressing  the  archetypal  thoughts  of  eternal  Reason  and 
progressively  realizing  the  ideals  and  ends  of  his  wisdom  and  love.  The 
natural  universe  exists  in  the  unity  of  a  Cosmos  by  its  relation  to  God. 
Personal  beings  exist  in  the  unity  of  a  moral  system  having  common 


THE  WILL.  359 

relations  to  each  other  and  to  God.  They  have  a  common  constitution 
as  rational  and  free.  Knowledge,  truth,  rational  and  moral  principles, 
ideals  of  perfection,  worth  and  well-being  as  estimated  by  reason,  are 
the  same  to  them  all  under  the  one  universal  law  of  God.  If,  then,  I 
choose  God  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and  service,  I  choose  him  in 
his  real  relations  to  the  universe ;  I  consent  to  the  truths,  laws,  ideals 
and  ends  of  the  supreme  reason ;  I  devote  my  eaergies  to  realize  as  a 
worker  with  God  all  the  ends  of  his  wisdom  and  love  in  the  realm  of 
personality,  and  so  to  advance  his  kingdom  of  righteousness  and  peace. 
In  choosing  God  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and  service,  I  choose  all 
rational  beings  within  the  sphere  of  my  knowledge  and  influence  as 
equally  with  myself  objects  of  trust  and  service  in  the  moral  system  in 
which  we  are  all  united.  And  in  that  choice  my  will  consents  to  the 
truths,  laws,  ideals  and  ends  which  are  eternal  in  the  divine  Reason  and 
are  the  constitution  of  the  system  of  things  in  which  we  all  exist  and 
act.  So  Christ  declares  the  object  of  human  service  to  be  God  as 
supreme  and  our  neighbor  (every  one  within  our  influence)  as 
ourselves. 

In  a  wrong  supreme  choice,  a  man  chooses  himself  alone,  and  thus 
refuses  God,  his  neighbor  and  himself  in  their  relations  in  the  moral 
system,  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and  service. 

I  have  spoken  of  trust  and  service.  These  constitute  the  entire 
activity  of  man  so  far  as  persons  are  the  object  of  it.  Trust  is  the 
activity  expressing  man's  consciousness  of  dependence  and  accords  with 
the  reality  that  man  is  finite  and  dependent.  Service  is  the  activity 
expressing  man's  consciousness  of  freedom  and  power,  and  accords  with 
the  reality  that  man  is  endowed  with  freedom  and  power,  and  so  is  a 
sort  of  subcreative  center  of  intelligence  and  energy. 

III.  The  love  which  is  required  in  the  law  of  God  is  a  free  choice 
of  the  will. 

We  are  embarrassed  by  the  fact  that  love  in  popular  language  is 
used  with  different  meanings.  We  use  the  word  indiscriminately  to 
denote  natural  appetites  or  desires  or  affections,  and  the  moral  character 
required  in  the  law  of  God.  We  say  indiscriminately  a  man  loves  an 
apple,  he  loves  intoxicating  liquors,  he  loves  money,  he  loves  his  chil- 
dren, he  loves  his  neighbor  and  he  loves  God.  It  is  evident  that  the 
love  required  in  the  law  cannot  be  the  same  with  love  in  all  the  different 
meanings  which  it  has  in  popular  use.  It  is  necessary  to  discriminate 
and  to  ascertain  what  is  the  distinctive  meaning  of  the  love  required  in 
the  law. 

Evidently,  for  the  very  reason  that  love  is  commanded  by  law,  it 
cannot  be  a  natural  appetite,  desire  or  affection,  nor  even  a  rational 
sensibility.  For  these  are  constitutional  impulses  and  are  only  in- 


360  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

directly  and  remotely  under  our  own  control.  A  mother's  love  is  in- 
stinctive. At  the  birth  of  her  child  it  rises  in  her  heart  as  involun- 
tarily as  the  milk  in  her  breast.  The  law  cannot  command  us,  as  our 
primary  and  supreme  duty,  to  feel,  to  melt  in  tender  sensibility,  to 
equip  ourselves  with  the  instincts  and  impulses  of  nature. 

If,  then,  the  love  commanded  in  the  law  must  be  under  our  im- 
mediate control,  it  must  be  a  determination  of  the  will ;  it  can  only  be 
the  choice,  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and  service,  of  God  and  all 
personal  beings  in  their  real  relations  in  the  unity  of  the  universal 
system.  It  is  the  free  choice,  after  thoughtful  comparison,  of  God 
as  the  person  to  whom  I  consecrate  all  my  energies  in  trust  and  service, 
and  of  my  neighbor  equally  with  myself  as  the  object  of  trust  and 
service  in  the  universal  moral  system  in  which  we  all  are  in  unity  under 
the  common  law  and  love  of  God.  If,  on  the  contrary,  I  love  my- 
self supremely,  this  selfishness  is  also  the  free  choice  of  myself  as  the 
supreme  object  of  trust  and  service. 

Here  we  attain  a  clear  and  complete  psychological  and  philosophi- 
cal distinction  between  the  love  which  the  law  requires,  and  appetites, 
desires,  affections  and  sensibilities  of  every  kind  which  in  popular  lan- 
guage are  called  love.  The  affections  of  nature  are  involuntary  im- 
pulses ;  the  love  which  dominates  in  the  moral  and  spiritual  life  is  a 
free  and  abiding  choice  of  the  will. 

If  this  is  not  so,  then  the  love  to  God  und  man  which  is  the  essence 
of  all  virtue,  and  God's  love  wliich  is  the  essence  of  his  own  moral 
perfection,  is  not  different  in  kind  from  a  cat's  love  of  her  kittens  or  a 
cow's  love  of  her  calf;  and  in  man  no  psychological  distinction  exists 
between  the  instinctive  appetites,  desires  and  affections  of  nature,  and 
the  love  which  constitutes  obedience  to  the  law  and  is  the  essence  of 
right  moral  character  both  in  man  and  God.  And  it  is  because  the 
love  whicli  is  the  perfection  of  moral  character  is  man's  free  choice, 
that  we  may  describe  the  man  who  exercises  it,  in  the  quotation  aptly 
applied  to  him  by  Kant : 

"  Liber,  pulcher,  honoratus,  Rex  denique  regum." 

IV.  Moral  character  consists  primarily  in  the  supreme  choice,  of 
which  subordinate  choices  and  all  volitional  determinations  and  actions 
are  immediately  or  remotely  manifestations.  The  state  of  the  intellect 
and  of  the  sensibilities,  and  the  habits  of  action  have  moral  character 
only  so  far  as  they  have  been  formed  or  modified  by  acts  of  will.  They 
are  moral  character  only  in  a  secondary  sense.  This  conception  is  a 
psychological  and  ethical  basis  for  the  scriptural  representation  that 
sin  is  an  apostasy  from  God,  that  all  men  are  morally  in  two  classes, 


THE  WILL.  361 

those  who  trust  and  serve  God  and  those  who  do  not,  and  that  the 
change  of  a  sinner  to  the  new  spiritual  life  is  a  critical  change,  of  all- 
determining  moment,  represented  by  a  new  birth,  a  resurrection  from 
the  dead,  and  other  equally  startling  analogies.  These  representations 
require  for  their  justification  and  significance  a  recognition  of  the 
unity  of  moral  and  spiritual  character  under  some  one  dominant  and 
all-characterizing  determination  or  choice. 

V.  The  existence  of  God  and  all  rational  creatures  in  one  rational 
system  is  the  fundamental  and  dominant  truth  in  theology,  and  equally 
in  all  philosophy,  speculative,  ethical,  aesthetic  and  teleological.  In  it 
philosophy  an;l  theology,  morality  and  religion,  are  at  one.  Persons 
exist  by  and  for  persons,  to  trust  and  serve  one  another.  God,  in- 
deed, is  independent  and  supreme.  But  only  through  the  universe  of 
nature  and  spirit  can  he  reveal  his  perfections ;  and  when  the  uni- 
verse exists  he  comes  to  men  in  Christ  in  the  form  of  a  servant  and 
advances  his  kingdom  through  the  agency  of  redeemed  men  who  are 
workers  together  with  God.  All  that  is  greatest  in  humanity  reveals 
the  membership  of  man  hi  this  rational  system.  We  have  seen  that 
the  sense  of  beauty  prompts  to  communicate  it.  So  all  that  is  noblest 
in  man  arouses  his  consciousness  of  fellowship  with  man  and  quickens 
the  feeling  that  he  lives  not  for  himself  alone.  It  arouses  a  sort  of . 
universal  consciousness  of  all  rational  life  mingling  with  his  own  in 
the  mightiest  inspirations  and  the  most  ennobling  ends  of  human 
action.  The  illuminism  which  tries  to  construct  an  ethical  philosophy 
on  the  basis  of  mere  individualism  misses  what  is  mightiest  and  most 
profound  in  Christian  ethics.  The  love  of  God  and  of  our  neighbor  as 
ourselves  which  Christ  requires,  is,  in  its  essential  significance,  the  choice 
of  God  and  his  rational  creatures  in  their  real  relations  in  the  unity 
of  the  universal  moral  system,  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and 
service. 

\  68.    The  Freedom  of  the  Will. 

I.  The  freedom  of  the  will  consists  in  the  fact  that  the  will  is  a  power 
which,  in  the  light  of  reason  and  under  the  influence  of  rational  mo- 
tives, can  determine  the  ends  or  objects  to  which  it  will  direct  its  energy 
and  the  exertion  of  its  energy  in  reference  to  the  determined  end  or 
object.  In  other  words,  the  freedom  of  the  will  consists  in  the  fact 
that  the  will  is  a  will.  The  definition  of  will  is  hi  itself  the  definition 
of  free  will. 

1.  Freedom  is  inherent  in  rationality.  The  will  is  Reason  energiz- 
ing ;  or,  as  Kant  calls  it,  the  Practical  Reason. 

If  man  were  not  endowed  with  reason,  he  would  be  susceptible  only 
of  natural  or  instinctive  motives  and  emotions,  and  would  follow  the 


332  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

strongest.  Nature  would  have  a  clean  sweep  through  him  like  water 
through  an  unobstructed  channel.  He  would  have  no  freedom  of  will ; 
that  is,  he  would  have  no  will.  But  because  he  is  endowed  with  reason 
he  is  susceptible  of  rational  motives,  motives  from  above  nature.  Thus 
he  is  able  to  choose  rational  ends  and  to  set  himself  in  resistance  to 
nature  and  its  impulses.  In  this  he  is  free.  If  he  is  swept  away 
by  nature  rushing  like  a  flood  through  his  instinctive  appetencies,  it 
is  because  he  yields  to  the  current  and  consents  to  being  swept  away. 
By  virtue  of  rationality  man  brings  the  objects  of  different  impulses 
or  motives  into  the  light  of  reason,  compares  them,  and  chooses  which 
shall  be  the  object  of  his  activity.  He  rises  above  "his  impulses  or 
motives  and  determines  his  end.  If  he  were  destitute  of  reason,  this 
would  be  impossible.  He  would  then  be  beneath  his  impulses  or 
motives,  and  necessarily  driven  by  them. 

Thus  man's  freedom  arises  from  his  being  endowed  with  reason.  He 
is  free  because  he  is  an  energizing  Reason,  or  a  rational  will.  So 
Milton  says,  True  liberty 

"Always  with  right  reason  dwells 
Twinned,  and  from  her  hath  no  dividual  being." 

Says  Thomas  Aquinas :  "  The  faculty  of  will  and  reason  is  called 
free  will.  Beings  who  have  reason  direct  themselves  to  an  end  when 
they  know  the  reason  of  the  end."  *  John  Smith  says  :  "  When  we 
converse  with  our  own  souls,  we  find  the  springs  of  all  liberty  to  be 
nothing  else  but  reason ;  and  therefore  no  unreasonable  creature  can 
partake  of  it."  f  Kant  also  recognizes  freedom  as  inherent  in  ration- 
ality :  "  The  will  is  a  sort  of  causal  efficiency  of  living  beings  so  far  as 
they  are  rational,  and  Freedom  is  the  attribute  of  this  causal  efficiency 
that  it  can  act  independent  of  foreign  causes  determining  it.  So  the 
attribute  of  the  causal  efficiency  of  all  irrational  beings  is  a  natural 
necessity  of  being  determined  to  their  activity  by  foreign  causes." 
"  Since  Reason  is  required  for  action  under  law,  the  Will  is  nothing 
other  than  the 'Practical  Reason."  J  He  recognizes  man,  by  virtue  of 
his  rationality,  as  belonging  to  a  rational  system,  "  a  realm  of  ends," 
above  nature,  and  as  such  capable  of  determining  himself  in  opposi- 
tion to  natural  propensities  and  influences,  and  of  being  determined 
by  laws  which  his  own  reason  prescribes.  He. thus  lays  the  foundation 
of  a  clear  and  self-consistent  conception  of  the  freedom  of  the  will. 
But  here,  again,  the  malign  influence  of  his  phenomenalism  as  con- 

*  Summa  Theologise,  Prima  Secundse,  Ques.  I.,  Art.  1,  2,  7. 
t  Select  Discourses,  1673,  p.  128. 

J  Grundlegung  zur  Metaphysik  der  Sitten,  Abschnitt  III.  sub  initio,  &  Absch.  II., 
pp.  78  and  36. 


THE  WILL.  363 

trasted  with  the  knowledge  of  the  "  thing  in  itself,"  reappears  and  pre- 
vents the  legitimate  development  of  his  conception. 

2.  Freedom  does  not  imply  the  consent  of  the  will  to  reason,  but 
only  the  capacity  of  choosing  in  the  light  of  reason.     Kant  and  others 
who  have  found  human  freedom  in  the  rationality  of  the  will,  have 
fallen  into  the  error  that  freedom   exists  only  in   a  will   consenting 
and  obedient  to  reason.     Hence  in  the  act  of  sin  man  loses  his  free- 
dom.    They  have  pushed  the  identification  of  reason  and  will  to  such 
an  extreme  that  they  cease  to  recognize  the  two  aspects  of  the  human 
spirit  which  render  the  two  names  significant    and   necessary;   these 
two  aspects  are,  first,  the  power  of  knowing  the  True,  the  Right,  the 
Perfect,  the  Worthy  or  Good,  and  the  Absolute,  which  justifies  the 
name,  Reason ;  and  secondly,  the  power  of  determining  in  the  light  of 
reason  the  ends  of  action  and  the  exertion  of  energy,  which  justifies 
the  name,  Will.     They  overlook  the  freedom  of  the  will,  which,  as  I 
have  defined  it,  constitutes  a  being  a  moral  and  responsible  agent,  and 
substitute  for  it  what  has  been  called  real  freedom,  which  exists  only 
in  the  moral  perfection  of  the  being  and   the  complete  harmony  of 
the  determinations  of  the  will  with  the  truths,  laws,  ideals  and  ends  of 
Reason. 

3.  The  conception  of  freedom  of  the  will  as  consisting  in  the  rela- 
tion of  will  and  reason — the  energizing   or   practical   reason,  or   the 
rational  will — is  a  totally  different  conception  from  that  of  Edwards, 
and  lifts  us  out  of  the  ambiguities  and  perplexities  in  which  all  attempts 
to  develop  his  conception  are  involved.     According  to  his  conception 
freedom  is  discussed  from  the  point  of  view  of  efficient  causation,  and 
must  be  defined  in  terms  of  power  only,  as  the  power  of  contrary 
choice.     Also  the  distinction  of  natural  and  moral  ability  which,  in 
accordance  with  the  universal  use  of  language,  is  legitimately  applied 
to  outward  acts,  is  illegitimately  applied  to  the  will  itself  as  an  explana- 
tion of  its  freedom ;  with  the  result,  again,  that  freedom  must  be  de- 
fined in  terms  of  power  only,  overlooking  all  in  which  the  freedom 
actually  consists.     Hence  there  is  left  no  resource  but  to  distinguish 
power  from  itself,  as  power  to  the  contrary.     In  this  type  of  thought 
the  will  is  regarded  as  merely  a  power  of  exertive  volition,  overlooking 
its  power  to  determine  in  choice  the  ends  or  objects  of  its  action.     In 
fact  the  power  of  contrary  choice  is  only  another  name  for  the  power 
of  choice.     Antecedent  to  a  deter mination,  man  is  free  to  choose  be- 
tween two  or  more.     But  as  yet  we  cannot  speak  of  a  power  of  con- 
trary choice  because  no  choice  has  yet  been  made  to  which  the  coming 
determination  is  the  contrary.     After  the  choice  is  made  and  the  man 
looks  back  on  it,  his  freedom  to  choose  between  two  comes  before  him 
in  the  remembrance  as  consciousness  that  he  might  have  chosen  the  con- 


364  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

trary  of  what  he  did  choose.  Thus  the  fact  of  free  choice  itself,  under 
the  name  which  denotes  the  remembrance  of  it  after  it  was  made,  is 
given  us  as  a  rationale  or  philosophical  explanation  of  the  fact  of  free 
choice.  On  the  contrary,  freedom  of  will,  instead  of  being  denned  in 
terms  of  power  only,  must  be  denned  with  reference  to  the  three  aspects 
of  the  human  mind,  intellect,  sensibility  and  will,  and  in  terms  recog- 
nizing the  three.  Freedom  is  in  the  fact  that  man  is  a  rational  being 
capable  of  determining  in  the  light  of  reason  and  under  the  influence 
of  rational  motives  both  the  objects  of  his  action  and  the  exertion  of 
his  power  to  act.  This  is  a  conception  of  freedom  which  stands  clear, 
unambiguous,  self-consistent  and  reasonable,  and  is  adequate  to  explain 
the  nature  and  ground  of  moral  responsibility.  At  the  same  time  it  is 
a  philosophical  basis  for  the  doctrine  that  moral  character,  without 
ceasing  to  carry  in  it  personal  responsibility  and  free  choice,  is  yet  deep 
and  continuous  under  all  specific  actions ;  a  doctrine  which,  in  spite  of 
the  philosophical  errors  and  even  absurdities  which  have  historically 
accompanied  it,  the  deepest  Christian  consciousness  has  always  held  for 
true,  and  for  which  a  flippant  illuminism  has  attempted  to  substitute 
the  conception  of  the  limitation  of  moral  responsibility  and  character 
to  single,  ictic  and  consciously  intentional  acts. 

II.  The  determinations  of  the  will  differ  in  kind  from  the  strongest 
impulse  of  the  sensibilities.  Those  who  deny  free-will,  hold  that  man's 
determinations  are  simply  the  action  of  the  strongest  impulse  under  the 
action  of  external  nature  on  the  nervous  organization.  Such  is  the  will 
recognized  by  Dr.  Maudsley,  Prof.  Alexander  Bain  and  others  who  ac- 
knowledge no  spirit  in  man.  It  is  all  the  will  that  is  left  for  them.  This, 
however,  is  not  will ;  it  implies  neither  self-determination  nor  freedom. 
An  ox  does  not  freely  determine  that  he  will  eat  grass  rather  than 
flesh,  nor  a  tiger  that  he  will  eat  flesh  and  not  grass.  The  line  of  their 
action  and  the  sources  of  their  enjoyment  are  determined  for  them  by 
their  own  nature.  So  if  man  always  follows  the  impulse  of  sensibility 
which  is  at  the  moment  the  strongest,  the  objects  which  he  seeks  and 
the  sources  of  his  enjoyments  are  determined  for  him  in  his  nature ;  he 
has  no  power  to  determine  his  exertions  nor  the  end  of  his  exertion ;  he 
has  no  freedom  of  will,  he  is  "  like  dumb,  driven  cattle." 

"Torva  leaena  lupum  sequitur;  lupus  ipse  capellam, 
Florentem  cytisum  sequitur  lasciva  capella, 
Te  Corydon,  O  Alexi ;  trahit  sua  quemque  voluptas." 

The  hereditary  appetite  of  an  omomaniac  is  his  will,  according  to  this 
definition.  But  it  is  this  which  enslaves  him.  His  will  is  the  power,  so 
much  as  is  left  to  him,  freely  to  consent  to  or  to  resist  the  diseased 


THE  WILL.  365 

appetite.     In  the  consciousness  of  free-will  a  man  says,  with  Shake- 
speare : 

"  I'U  never 

Be  such  a  gosling  as  to  obey  instinct,  but  stand, 

As  if  a  man  were  author  of  himself 

And  knew  no  other  kin." 

Kant  has  distributed  the  mental  phenomena  in  three  classes :  Cogni- 
tion, Feeling,  and  Appetency  or  the  Conative  Powers.*  The  phrase 
"  Bestrebungs  Vermogen,"  faculties  of  effort  or  endeavor,  is  used  in  Ger- 
man Philosophy  as  a  genus  including  Will  and  Desire.  Hamilton 
adopted  this  classification,  f  Dr.  McCosh  also  includes  the  desires  or 
the  .optative  part  of  man's  nature  with  the  will,  and  selects  the  name 
"  optative  states  of  mind,"  as  preferable  to  the  name  Will.  J  This  is,  it 
is  true,  merely  a  matter  of  classification.  And  yet  the  separating  of 
desires  or  appetencies,  which  are  motives  of  action,  from  the  other  feel- 
ings and  classing  them  with  the  will,  necessarily  obscures  the  distinction 
between  motives  and  determinations  and  tends  to  the  fatal  position  that 
the  determination  is  simply  the  impulse  of  the  sensibilities  which  is  at 
the  time  the  strongest.  But  in  a  free  agent,  appetencies  and  desires, 
however  strong,  remain  always  feelings.  The  determination  is  his  own, 
and  is  the  distinctive  act  of  will.  The  Will  includes,  it  is  true,  the 
causal  efficiency  of  the  soul,  its  spontaneous  causal  energy  ;  yet  the  will 
is  not  well  described  as  the  conative  faculty  or  faculty  of  endeavor, 
because  it  is  distinctively  the  faculty  of  determination,  determining  the 
end  to  which  it  will  direct  its  energies  and  calling  its  energies  into 
action  when  it  will.  It  is  to  be  regretted  that  writers  who  believe  in 
free-will  should  thus  adopt  a  faulty  classification  which  throws  out  of 
sight  the  distinction  between  determination  and  motive  and  tends 
directly  to  the  denial  of  free-will. 

III.   Man's  knowledge  of  his  free-will  is  of  the  highest  certainty. 

1.  I  appeal  to  consciousness.  Prof.  Bain  enters  into  an  elaborate 
refutation  of  this  argument  from  consciousness.  §  But  he  attempts  to 
establish  only,  what  no  one  denies,  that  the  testimony  of  consciousness 
in  any  particular  case  is  indisputable  only  as  to  the  existence  of  the 
mental  state  known  in  consciousness.  A  man's  consciousness  that  he 
believes  in  witches  is  indisputable  as  to  the  fact  that  he  believes  in 
them,  but  of  no  authority  to  prove  that  witches  exist. 

Admitting  this,  I  appeal  to  any  and  every  man  to  say,  Are  you  con- 
scious of  having  the  power  of  free  choice  ?  Have  you  ever  made  a  free 

*  Kritik  des  Urtheilskraft ;  Einleitung.  f  Metaphysics,  pp.  86  and  129. 

J  Divine  Government,  274-279. 

I  The  Emotions  and  the  Will,  pp.  511-519;  The  Will,  chap,  xi.,  $$  9-12. 


366  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

choice?  Prof.  Bain  objects  that  no  one  knows  the  consciousness  of  any 
person  except  his  own,  and  says  not  "  any  fellow-man  can  carry  his 
consciousness  into  mine."  True ;  but  other  persons  can  inform  us  as  to 
their  own  consciousness ;  and  the  argument  is  an  appeal  to  Prof.  Bain 
himself  or  to  any  other  man  to  testify  in  answer  to  the  questions.  And 
I  doubt  not  that  every  one  who  answers  honestly  will  answer  that  he  is 
conscious  that  he  has  the  power  of  free  choice  and  is  responsible  for  his 
actions. 

It  should  be  added  that  the  consciousness  of  moral  responsibility  in- 
volves the  consciousness  of  freedom ;  these  two  are  inseparable ;  whoever 
is  conscious  that  he  is  responsible  for  his  actions,  that  he  blames  himself 
for  doing  wrong  or  commends  himself  for  doing  right,  is  conscious  of 
free  choice.  No  man  can  blame  or  praise  himself  or  feel  responsible 
for  any  event  which  is  in  no  way  dependent  on  his  own  free-will. 

That  man  is  conscious  of  free-will  and  responsibility  is  admitted  even 
by  those  who  deny  free-will.  Some,  as  Hume,  Diderot,  Mill,  admit 
that  men  believe  themselves  free  and  responsible,  but  account  for  their 
self-delusion  by  education,  habit  or  the  association  of  ideas.  Evolu- 
tionists acknowledge  that  man  feels  himself  responsible  for  his  actions, 
but  account  for  the  belief  by  the  cumulative  effects  of  evolution  through 
many  generations.  Prof.  Bain  says  that  "  the  sense  of  obligation  has 
no  other  universal  property  except  the  ideal  and  actual  avoidance  of 
conduct  prohibited  by  penalties."  But  this  is  a  monstrous  misrepre- 
sentation of  the  sense  of  obligation  or  duty ;  and,  aside  from  that,  the 
very  infliction  of  penalties  is  the  recognition  of  the  criminal's  responsi- 
bility for  his  actions. 

Prof.  Bain  further  objects  that  the  notion  of  freedom  is  a  "  generali- 
zation," and  therefore  "  is  not  an  intuition  any  more  than  the  notion  of 
the  double  decomposition  of  salts."  But  we  have  seen  that  free  will  is 
nothing  different  from  will,  that  freedom  is  essential  in  the  very  idea  of 
choice.  Consciousness  of  freedom  is  simply  the  consciousness  of  choos- 
ing ;  it  is  simply  the  consciousness  in  every  act  of  choice  of  the  power 
of  choosing  either  of  two  or  any  one  of  many  objects  which  are  com- 
pared as  ends  of  action ;  and  whenever  the  choice  is  remembered,  it  is 
with  the  consciousness,  "  I  might  have  chosen  otherwise ;  I  was  free  to 
choose  any  one  of  the  objects  compared ;  the  determination  was  my 
own  and  wTithin  my  own  power."  What  I  affirm  is  that  every  act  of 
choice  and  every  remembrance  of  an  act  of  choice  is  accompanied  with 
this  consciousness.  These  are  not  generalizations ;  they  are  simple  acts 
of  consciousness  and  memory.  And  to  whomsoever  I  might  appeal,  I 
have  no  doubt  he  would  testify,  if  he  uttered  his  own  spontaneous  be- 
lief, that  every  choice  he  ever  made  and  every  remembrance  of  a  choice 
has  been  accompanied  with  this  consciousness. 


THE  WILL.  367 

2.  This  belief  of  one's   personal  freedom  of  choice  sustains  all  the 
tests  of  primitive   knowledge.     It  is   clear  in  its  own  self-evidence. 
While  the  consciousness  lasts  it  is  impossible  to  think  the  contrary  to 
be  true ;  just  as  while  I  perceive  a  stone  held  in  my  hand  it  is  impossi- 
ble for  me  to  think  that  I  perceive  nothing.     The  belief  persists  in  the 
face  of  speculative  reasoning  and  conclusion  to  the  contrary ;  a  number 
of  men  now  living  and  some  in  former  times  have  declared  their  con- 
viction that  they  are  machines,  but  no  one  of  them  has  ever  practically 
believed  it,  or  divested  himself  of  the  consciousness  of  his  own  power 
of  free  choice  and  his  own  responsibility  for  his  actions.     Also,  the  be- 
lief is  consistent  with  itself,  with  all  its  legitimate  outcome,  and  with 
all  established  facts,  truths  and  laws  of  empirical,  noetic  and  theological 
science.     My  belief  of  my  own  free  choice  and  of  my  responsibility  for 
my  actions  sustains  these  four  tests  or  criteria  of  knowledge  so  far  as  I 
have  been  able  to  apply  them.     Let  the  reader  apply  them  for  himself. 
Accordingly  the  eminent  physiologist,  Dr.  Carpenter,  says :  "  If  the 
psychologist  throws  himself  fearlessly  into  the  deepest  waters  of  specu- 
lative inquiry,  provided  that  he  trusts  to  the  inherent  buoyancy  of  the 
one  fact  of  consciousness  that  we  have  within  us  a  self-determining 
power  which  we  call  will,  he  need  not  be  afraid  of  being  dragged 
down   into   the   'coarse   materialism'    of  the    nature-philosophers   of 
Germany.'  * 

3.  History  proves  that  the  belief  that  man  has  the  power  of  free 
choice  and  is  himself  the  responsible  determiner  of  his  own  ends  and 
actions,  is  inwrought  into  the  consciousness  of  the  human  race.     It  is 
recognized  in  government  in  all  its  forms ;    in  all  laws  and  penalties ; 
in  all  moral    ideas ;    in  ail    literature ;    in  all  the  bargains  and  con- 
tracts of  business ;   and  in  the  language  and  action  of  all  human  in- 
tercourse in  daily  life.     The  denial  of  free  will  involves  a  revolution 
of  the  most  sweeping  and  fundamental  character  in  all  these  respects. 
It  would  "  turn  the  world  upside  down."     It  would  take  out  of  the 
life,  history  and  institutions  of  man  all  that  makes  them  human. 

4.  The  free  will  of  man  is  involved  in  the  fact  that  he  is  constituted 
rational,  endowed  with  reason  and  rational  sensibility.     A  being  thus 
constituted  must  be  able  to  determine  his  own  ends  and  actions.     A 
reason  when  it  energizes  must  be  able  to  call  forth  its  energies  into 
action  and  to  determine  the  end  to  which  it  will  direct  them.     A  will 
since  it  determines  only  in  the  light  of  reason,  must  be  a  rational  will 
and  therefore  free.     To  admit  that  man  is  rational  is  to  admit  that  he 
is  free ;  to  deny  that  man  is  free  is  to  deny  that  he  is  rational.     To 
assert  human  reason  and  to  deny  the  freedom  of  the  human  will  are 

*  Mind  and  Will  in  Nature  :  Contemporary  Rev.    1872. 


368  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

contradictory  propositions.     To  deny  human  reason  and  to  assert  free- 
will are  in  like  manner  contradictions. 

5.  The  denial  of  free-will  is  the  denial  of  all  moral  obligations,  dis- 
tinctions and  responsibility ;  obligation  and  duty,  the  distinction  of  right 
and  wrong,  of  merit  and  demerit,  and  the  idea  of  responsibility  for 
action  lose  all  meaning.  If  man's  actions  are  irresistibly  determined 
from  without  himself,  as  the  rising  .and  falling  of  the  beam  of  a  balance 
is  determined  by  weights  (which  is  Diderot's  comparison),  then  it  is 
impossible  to  think  of  him  as  under  moral  obligations,  as  doing  right 
or  wrong,  as  deserving  reward  or  punishment ;  it  is  as  impossible  as  to 
think  thus  of  the  beam  of  a  balance.  Then  a  man  can  no  more  have 
a  virtuous  or  a  vicious  character  than  a  tree  can  be  virtuous  because  it 
bears  good  fruit,  or  vicious  for  not  bearing  it.  And  so  Mr.  Bray  boldly 
avows :  "  If  we  love  the  rose  and  avoid  assafoetida,  it  is  not  from  any 
free  will  in  the  rose  to  smell  sweet  and  look  beautiful,  but  because  its 
attributes  affect  us  pleasurably.  It  is  the  same  in  the  moral  world.  .  .  . 
We  put  the  human  rose  in  our  bosom  and  we  avoid  the  ugly  and  dis- 
agreeable person  as  we  would  assafoetida,  and  for  the  same  reason."* 

It  is  important  to  insist  on  this  dependence  of  all  moral  ideas  on  the 
recognition  of  free-will.  A  person  may  reason  himself  into  the  belief 
that  nature  is  only  a  mechanism,  and  that  man  is  wholly  included  in  its 
machinery,  and  therefore  has  no  free-will ;  yet,  if  he  saw  clearly  that 
his  conclusion  involved  the  blotting  out  of  the  significance  of  all  moral 
ideas,  he  wrould  shrink  from  a  conclusion  so  contrary  to  common  sense 
and  so  destructive  to  the  interest  of  man  and  to  the  very  idea  of  human- 
ity. Through  overlooking  this  dependence  men,  who  deny  free-will 
and  regard  man  and  all  his  actions  as  necessary  products  of  the  forces 
of  nature,  yet  insist  strenuously  on  the  reality  of  moral  distinctions, 
and  thus  either  contradict  themselves  by  affirming  moral  ideas  which, 
as  everybody  knows,  have  significance  only  with  reference  to  free-will, 
or  else  fall  into  the  sophistry  of  retaining  the  words  which  express  the 
moral  ideas  while  using  them  with  an  entirely  different  meaning. 

So  also  men  deny  that  man  is  endowed  with  reason,  and  limit  know- 
ledge to  the  empirical  science  of  nature,  and  yet  affirm  free-will.  Thus 
Prof.  Clifford,  with  all  his  assaults  on  Christianity,  still  held  to  moral 
distinctions,  to  conscience,  and  to  free-will.  He  says  in  his  Essays : 
"  That  man  is  a  free  agent  appears  to  me  obvious,  and  that  in  the 
natural  sense  of  the  words.  We  need  ask  for  no  better  definition 
than  Kant's ; "  and  he  cites  Kant's  definition  which  I  have  already 
quoted.  But  it  is  evident  in  Prof.  Clifford's  system  of  thought 
there  is  no  place  for  either  reason  or  free-will  in  the  sense  in 

*  Force,  and  its  Mental  and  Moral  Correlates :  by  Charles  Bray ;  p.  40. 


THE  WILL.  369 

\vhich  Kant  uses  the  words.  And  when  Prof.  Clifford  goes  on  to 
&ay :  "  I  believe  that  I  ani  a  free  agent  when  my  actions  are  indepen- 
dent of  the  circumstances  outside  me,"  we  read  him  with  amazement. 
He  had  quoted  Kant  as  saying :  "  Necessity  is  that  property  of  all  ir- 
rational beings  which  consists  in  their  being  determined  to  activity  by 
the  influence  of  outside  causes."  And  yet,  if  we  read  Prof.  Clifford 
aright,  man  in  his  being  and  all  his  actions  is  himself  a  product  of 
nature,  and  thus  is  characterized  by  the  very  attribute  by  which  Kant 
characterizes  irrational  beings.  In  what  sense,  then,  can  Prof.  Clifford 
regard  his  own  act'ion  as  "  independent  of  the  circumstances  outside 
me "  ?  Evidently  in  the  sense  only  of  freedom  from  compulsion  by  ex- 
ternal force  interfering  with  the  spontaneous  but  necessary  development 
of  nature ;  only  in  the  sense  in  which  a  tree  grows  freely  or  "  the  river 
windeth  at  its  own  sweet  will."  Wittingly  or  unwittingly,  Prof.  Clifford, 
in  accepting  Kant's  definition  of  will,  is  using  words  significant  and 
true  in  their  place  in  Kant's  philosophy,  but  meaningless  in  Prof.  Clif- 
ford's wholly  different  system  of  thought. 

Prof.  Huxley  is  another  example  of  inconsistency  on  this  subject. 
He  says :  "  I  protest  that  if  some  great  power  would  agree  to  make 
me  always  think  what  is  true  and  do  what  is  right,  on  condition  of  my 
being  turned  into  a  sort  of  clock  and  wound  up  every  morning,  I  should 
instantly  close  with  the  offer.  The  only  freedom  I  care  about  is  the 
freedom  to  do  right ;  the  freedom  to  do  wrong  I  am  ready  to  part  with 
on  the  cheapest  terms  to  any  one  that  will  take  it  off  me."*  It  seems 
not  to  have  occurred  to  Mr.  Huxley  that  he  cannot  be  a  clock  and  a 
man  both  at  once ;  that  if  he  were  made  into  a  clock  he  would  cease 
to  be  a  man  and  would  become  a  machine.  All  the  dignity  and  worth 
of  man,  all  his  power  to  do  right  or  wrong,  all  the  grave  responsibili- 
ties and  sublime  possibilities  of  his  being,  all  grounds  for  the  divine 
command,  "  Honor  all  men,"  lie  in  the  fact  that  man  is  a  rational  free 
agent.  To  talk  about  being  transformed  into  a  clock  and  wound  up 
every  morning  and  still  doing  right  in  obedience  to  moral  law,  is  to 
talk  nonsense. 

And  is  it  not  plain  that  the  theory  that  nature  is  a  mechanism  and 
man  a  mechanical  product  of  it,  makes  all  his  actions  the  running  of  a 
"  sort  of  clock,"  all  the  movements  of  which  are  determined,  like  those 
of  any  clock,  by  the  forces  of  nature,  and  yet  a  clock  which  con- 
tinually goes  wrong,  and  which  is  conscious  to  itself  of  its  own  wrong 
going. 

6.  It  appears  from  the  foregoing  considerations  that  if  we  regard 
it  simply  as  an  hypothesis  that  man  is  a  rational  free  will,  it  fully  ex- 

*  Lay  Sermons :  p.  373. 

24 


370  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. - 

plains  and  accounts  for  all  the  facts  of  the  history  of  man's  action  in 
the  universe,  and  is  continually  verified  by  the  consciousness  and  the 
history  of  man ;  whereas  the  contrary  hypothesis,  which  denies  free 
agency  and  regards  man's  action  as  the  necessary  result  of  the  mechan- 
ical action  of  nature  upon  his  organization,  fails  to  account  for  a  large 
number  of  the  most  important  facts  in  the  life  and  history  of  man  and 
fails  to  recognize  them  as  having  real  significance. 

IV.  The  common  objections  to  free-will  are  founded  on  a  false 
theory  of  knowledge  and  are  for  the  most  part  a  mere  begging  of  the 
question.  They  are  usually  founded  on  some  theory  which  limits 
knowledge  to  the  phenomena  of  sense ;  or  which  at  most  recognizes  as 
knowledge  nothing  beyond  the  empirical  science  of  nature. 

H.  Spencer  says :  "  That  every  one  is  at  liberty  to  desire  or  not  to 
desire,  which  is  the  real  proposition  involved  in  the  dogma  of  free-will," 
is  contrary  to  consciousness.  Every  one  who  recognizes  freedom  as 
grounded  in  reason  expressly  distinguishes  the  free  determinations  of 
the  will  from  the  desires  which  arise  spontaneously  from  the  nature, 
and  affirms  that  by  his  free  determinations  man  yields  to,  resists  or 
regulates  natural  desires,  but  denies  as  strenuously  as  Mr.  Spencer  him- 
self, that  man  is  free  to  desire  or  not  to  desire.  It  is  a  fallacy  to  deny 
a  conception  of  freedom  which  may  be  the  only  one  possible  from  Mr. 
Spencer's  point  of  view,  and  then  to  argue  that  the  denial  disproves 
freedom  conceived  of  in  a  totally  different  meaning  and  from  a  different 
view  of  man. 

Mr.  Spencer  regards  the  ego  as  merely  "  the  aggregate  of  feelings  and 
ideas,  actual  and  nascent,  which  exists"  at  the  moment.  He  talks  of 
"  the  cohesion  of  psychical  states,"  as  if  they  were  entities  or  atoms, 
and  himself  a  mediaeval  schoolman.  With  such  a  psychology,  free- 
dom is  as  impossible  to  man  as  it  would  be  to  a  hot  day  at  any  particu- 
lar moment.  Mr.  Spencer  says  for  substance,  that  if  the  ego  is  not 
present  in  consciousness,  we  have  no  knowledge  of  it;  and  if  it  is 
present  in  consciousness,  it  is  a  constant  quantity  and  therefore  indis- 
tinguishable from  the  consciousness.  But  if  man  is  so  constituted  as  a 
rational  being  that  in  every  perception  of  an  outward  object  he  neces- 
sarily knows  himself  as  percipient,  if  in  every  act  and  state  of  con- 
sciousness he  necessarily  knows  himself  as  subject  of  that  state  and 
agent  in  that  action,  and  if  the  knowledge  of  himself  as  knowing  is 
essential  to  the  knowledge  of  the  object,  so  that  without  it  knowledge 
itself  vanishes  away,  then  Mr.  Spencer's  speculations  do  not  alter  this 
fundamental  fact  and  primary  law  of  the  human  mind.  And  if  I 
exist  and  I  know,  then  also  I  can  choose  and  choose  freely.  It  is  true, 
as  Mr.  Spencer  says,~that  in  every  affirmation  of  free-will  is  the  suppo- 
sition of  a  conscious  self  as  distinguishable  from  the  psychical  states. 


THE  WILL.  371 

The  free-will  is  the  I,  the  Ego,  the  person,  determining  his  ends  and 
exertions  amid  the  multiplicity  of  his  ideas  and  impulses.  In  affirm- 
ing my  free-will  I  affirm  that  I  exist ;  in  denying  my  free-will  I  deny 
that  I  exist.  My  belief  in  free-will  is  as  deeply  rooted  and  as  thor- 
oughly warranted  in  the  very  constitution  of  my  being  as  is  my  belief 
in  my  own  existence. 

Mr.  Spencer  further  says :  "  Psychical  changes  either  conform  to  law 
or  they  do  not.  If  they  do  not,  this  work  ....  is  sheer  non- 
sense ;  no  science  of  psychology  is  possible.  If  they  do,  there  cannot 
be  any  such  thing  as  free-will."  He  means  by  law  an  invariable 
sequence  of  natural  phenomena.  Substitute  this  phrase  for  "  law  "  in 
these  sentences.  "Psychical  changes  are  either  invariable  sequences 
of  nature  or  they  are  not,"  etc.  Evidently  this  is  not  an  argument, 
but  a  begging  of  the  question.  The  question  is  whether  choices  and 
volitions  are  included  in  the  uniform  sequences  of  nature  or  are  deter- 
minations of  will.  And  he  says  that  if  they  are  not  uniform  sequences 
of  nature,  no  science  of  psychology  is  possible.  This  is  not  only  a  beg- 
ging of  the  question,  but  also  an  arrogant  assertion  that  if  they  are  not 
uniform  sequences,  but  are  determinations  of  will,  they  must  be 
excluded  from  all  scientific  investigation.  The  will  is  subject  to  law  as 
really  as  nature  is ;  but  it  is  moral  law,  the  law  of  love  addressed  to 
rational  free  agents,  who,  in  the  exercise  of  their  freedom,  may  obey  or 
disobey.  The  moral  system  is  a  realm  of  law  as  really  as  the  natural. 

He  also  says :  "  The  freedom  of  the  will,  did  it  exist,  would  be  at 
variance  with  the  beneficent  necessity  displayed  hi  the  evolution  of  the 
correspondence  between  the  organism  and  its  environment.  .  .  .  That 
gradual  molding  of  inner  relations  to  outer  relations,  .  .  .  that  ever- 
extending  adaptation  of  the  cohesions  of  psychical  states  to  the  con- 
nections between  the  answering  phenomena,  which,  we  have  seen, 
results  from  the  accumulation  of  experiences,  would  be  hindered  did 
there  exist  anything  which  otherwise  caused  their  cohesions."  *  But 
here  again,  instead  of  argument,  we  have  a  begging  of  the  question. 
For  the  very  question  is  whether,  hi  addition  to  the  system  of  nature 
and  transcending  it,  is  a  system  of  reason  and  free-will.  The  existence 
of  such  a  system  does  not  involve  the  non-existence  of  the  system  of 
nature,  nor  annul  its  uniform  sequences,  nor  add  to  nor  substract  from 
the  aggregate  of  its  atoms  and  its  forces.  But  it  is  a  system  of  rational 
beings  and  of  free-will,  fatis  avolsa  potestas.  Nor  does  its  existence 
defeat  the  beneficent  adaptations  of  nature ;  on  the  contrary,  it  is  itself 
a  realm  of  ends ;  rational  free  agents  do  not  exist  to  be  tools  and  imple- 
ments, but  are  themselves  ends,  for  which  nature  itself  exists.  They 

*  Spencer's  Psychology,  g  219, Vol.  I.,  pp.  500-503. 


372  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

belong  to  a  rational  system  grander  than  the  system  of  nature,  with  the 
wise  and  beneficent  and  all-comprehending  design  of  expressing  the 
archetypal  thoughts  of  reason,  extending  the  reign  of  moral  law,  real- 
izing rational  ideals  of  perfection  and  the  ends  which  reason  approves 
as  worthy,  and  so  establishing,  extending  and  perfecting  the  kingdom 
of  God  in  grander  worlds  and  ages  eternal.  Rational  beings  act  in  and 
upon  the  natural  system ;  but  they  do  it  no  violence,  and  by  their 
agency  advance  it  in  its  development  to  perfection. 

As  to  Mr.  Spencer's  belief  that  if  there  were  free-will  there  "  would 
be  a  retardation  of  that  grand  progress  which  is  bearing  humanity 
onwards  to  a  higher  intelligence  and  a  nobler  character,"  it  is  a  noto- 
rious fact  that  man  by  his  wickedness  of  every  kind  has  effected  a  great 
deal  of  that  "  retardation "  of  all  good ;  and  that  science  must  find  a 
place  for  this  fact.  Free-will  fully  explains  it.  But  if  all  this  wicked- 
ness is  the  result  solely  of  the  necessary  and  normal  action  of  nature,  it 
is  incompatible  with  the  "  grand  progress  "  effected  by  evolution,  and  it 
becomes  Mr.  Spencer  to  speak  with  some  less  assurance  of  the  "  benefi- 
cent adaptations "  of  nature ;  especially  as  all  the  beneficent  results 
must  be  realized  in  man's  natural  life  on  earth,  and  there  is  no  grand 
outlook  to  higher  results  in  the  sphere  of  the  spiritual  and  unseen. 
Science  gives  us  a  grand  conception  of  evolution  in  nature.  Theism, 
and  especially  Christianity,  gives  us  a  grander  conception  of  a  "  new 
heavens  and  a  new  earth  wherein  dwelleth  righteousness,"  and  of  an 
evolution  in  spiritual  life  and  power  immeasurable  and  eternal. 

V.  The  theory  that  man's  character  and  action  are  determined  by 
the  forces  of  nature  acting  on  him  to  the  exclusion  of  free-will  is  con- 
trary to  the  facts  of  human  history.  Diderot  states  this  doctrine : — 
"  Examine  it  narrowly  and  you  will  see  that  liberty  is  a  word  devoid 
of  meaning  ;  that  free  agents  do  not  and  cannot  exist ;  that  we  are 
made  what  we  are  by  the  general  course  of  nature,  by  our  organiza- 
tion, our  education  and  the  chain  of  events.  We  can  no  more  conceive 
of  a  being  acting  without  a  motive  than  we  can  conceive  of  one  of  the 
arms  of  a  balance  moving  without  a  weight.  The  motive  is  always 
external  and  foreign,  fastened  on  us  by  some  cause  distinct  from  our- 
selves." Here  again  is  a  misrepresentation ;  freedom  does  not  imply 
that  a  man  acts  without  motives,  but  that  among  conflicting  motives  he 
chooses  his  end  in  the  light  of  reason  and  with  susceptibility  to  the 
influence  of  rational  motives  over  against  the  natural  or  instinctive 
impulses ;  and  the  motives  themselves  are  not  all  "  external  and 
foreign." 

In  accordance  with  this  denial  of  freedom,  it  is  held  that  the  diversity 
of  nations  in  character,  institutions  and  civilization  is  the  result  solely 
of  the  influence  of  climate,  soil  and  other  peculiar  cosmic  agencies. 


THE  WILL.  373 

Now  I  affirm  that  this  theory  is  contradicted  by  the  facts  of  human 
history. 

1.  Different  countries  within  the  same  isothermal  lines  and  subject  to 
essentially  the  same  cosmic  influences,  ought,  according  to  the  theory, 
to  develop  the  same  civilization ;  but  it  is  notorious  that  they  do  not. 
Mr.  Buckle  adduces  in  support  of  this  theory  the  similar  conditions  of 
climate  and  soil  in  India,  Egypt  and  Mexico,  as  explaining  the  simi- 
larity of  their  ancient  civilization.  But  for  similar  reasons  he  acknow- 
ledges that  we  should  expect  a  similar  civilization  in  South  America,  on 
the  East  side  of  the  continent,  while  in  fact  it  was  found  only  in  Peru 
on  the  West.  Why  did  not  these  similar  cosmic  influences  produce  the 
same  civilization  in  Brazil?  Mr.  Buckle  gives  only  an  inadequate 
answer.  After  a  brilliant  description  of  the  luxuriance  and  opulence 
of  nature  there,  he  says :  "  Amid  this  pomp  and  splendor  of  nature,  no 
place  is  left  for  man.  He  is  reduced  to  insignificance  by  the  majesty 
with  which  he  is  surrounded."  * 

Dr.  Draper  has  attempted  to  apply  the  same  theory  hi  the  writing 
of  history.  In  "  The  Intellectual  Development  of  Europe"  he  accepts 
the  old  generalization,  made  by  the  fancy  and  not  by  the  judgment, 
that  "  nations  pursue  their  way  physically  and  intellectually  through 
changes  and  developments  answering  to  those  of  the  individual,  and 
represented  by  Infancy,  Childhood,  Manhood,  Old  Age  and  Death 
respectively."  This  fancy  is  contradicted  by  the  facts  of  history.  Be- 
sides, how  can  the  same  influences  of  configuration  of  territory,  near- 
ness to  the  sea,  soil,  climate  and  other  cosmic  agencies,  produce  on  the 
same  nation  so  contrary  effects  as  first  to  cause  it  to  grow,  and  then  to 
decline,  and  finally  to  cause  its  death  ?  And  how  is  this  fancy  con- 
sistent with  the  theory  of  evolution  and  with  "the  beneficent  necessity" 
involved  in  it,  on  which  Mr.  Spencer  insists,  that  "  the  life  must  become 
higher  and  the  happiness  greater?" 

In  his  "  Histoiy  of  the  American  Civil  War,"  Dr.  Draper  applies 
the  theory  of  cosmic  influences  to  explain  that  history ;  or,  as  it  seems 
more  probable,  wrote  the  history  to  exemplify  his  theory.  He  says : 
"  Climate  and  place  of  abode,  not  only  in  a  superficial,  but  in  a  pro- 
found manner,  can  change  the  constitution  and  construction  of  man." 
"  The  antagonism  of  habit  and  thought  must  be  between  the  North  and 
the  South ;  there  will  be  harmony  between  the  East  and  the  West." 
When  it  is  remembered  that  the  territories  known  as  the  North  and 
the  South  are  contiguous  and  the  dividing  line  winds  up  and  down 
through  four  degrees  of  latitude,  it  is  incredible  that  climate  should 
have  caused  the  alleged  differences.  If  the  people  of  the  two  sections 

*  History  of  Civilization,  Vol.  I.,  chap.  ii. 


374  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

were  'alike  when  they  emigrated,  as,  according  to  Dr.  Draper's  theory, 
being  of  the  same  race  and  emigrants  from  the  same  island,  they  should 
have  been  and  as  his  argument  assumes  they  were,  it  is  a  marvellous 
instance  of  the  ra.pidity  of  evolution  that  such  changes  should  be 
effected  by  it  in  so  brief  a  time ;  if  evolution  is  proceeding  at  this 
rate,  why  has  it  effected  so  little  in  all  the  historical  period?  Dr. 
Draper  says  that  while  the  climate  of  the  South  favored  slavery, 
it  "  promoted  a  sentiment  of  independence  in  the  person  and  of  State 
Rights  in  the  community ; "  while  at  the  North  climate  "  intensified 
in  the  person  a  disposition  to  individualism  and  in  the  community  to 
Unionism."  At  the  same  time  the  physical  geography  of  the  two 
sections  aided  this  influence,  and  produced  centralization  in  the  North 
and  separation  in  the  South ;  "  the  one  tended  to  diversity,  the  other 
to  unity." 

These  are  certainly  wonderful  generalizations.  They  are  also  plainly 
contrary  to  history,  for  the  distinctive  characteristics  of  the  people  of 
the  Northern  and  Southern  colonies  existed  when  they  came  from  Eng- 
land and  can  be  traced  in  the  colonies  from  the  beginning.  Does  Dr. 
Draper  suppose  that  the  difference  of  the  two  classes  of  English  people 
represented  by  the  Puritans  and  the  Cavaliers,  was  created  by  different 
cosmic  influences  in  the  small  territory  of  England?  .And  can  he 
explain  the  remarkable  differences  between  the  English  and  the  Irish 
of  the  present  time  by  cosmic  agencies  ?  Dr.  Draper  further  says : 
"  Let  it  be  proposed  to  ascertain  what  would  be  the  character  of  a 
European  population  placed  on  the  Atlantic  border,"  between  the 
isothermal  lines  which  bound  the  Southern  States ;  "  wre  shall  have  to 
ascertain  in  what  part  of  the  old  world  the  same  isothermal  zone 
occurs ;  then  we  shall  have  to  learn  from  history  the  character  and  acts 
of  the  nations  who  have  inhabited  that  zone ;"  and  we  may  expect  the 
same  characteristics  to  appear  in  the  South.  But  if  we  follow  this 
isothermal  zone  along  the  Southern  shores  of  the  Mediterranean, 
through  Palestine,  Central  Persia,  and  onwards  around  the  world,  we 
find  no  people  bearing  any  peculiar  resemblance  to  the  people  of  the 
Southern  States ;  certainly  we  do  not  find  the  doctrine  of  State  Rights, 
which,  according  to  Dr.  Draper,  is  a  necessary  result  of  this  peculiar 
climate.  And  we  may  further  ask  why  this  climate,  which  has  acted 
so  powerfully  on  the  whites,  has  had  no  perceptible  effect  on  the 
negroes?  Dr.  Draper  is  so  confident  that  he  even  indulges  in  pro- 
phecy ;  speaking  of  the  climate-zone  of  our  Pacific  coast  as  analogous 
to  that  of  Asia,  he  says :  "  Man  also  in  these  varied  abodes  will  undergo 
modification;  and  since,  under  like  circumstances,  human  nature  is 
always  the  same,  the  habits  and  ideas  of  the  old  world  will  reappear  in 
the  new.  The  arts  of  Eastern  life,  the  picturesque  orientalism  of 


THE  WILL.  375 

Arabia  will  be  reproduced  in  our  interior  sandy  deserts,  the  love-songs 
of  Persia  in  the  dells  and  glades  of  Sonora,  and  the  religious  aspirations 
of  Palestine  in  the  similar  scenery  of  New  Mexico."  * 

I  have  dwelt  the  longer  on  this  work,  as  exemplifying  not  only  the 
contrariety  of  this  theory  to  facts,  but  also  the  trumpery  which  is  some- 
times imposed  on  the  public  in  the  name  of  science.  It  also  exemplifies 
the  rash  generalizations  and  inferences  in  the  philosophy  of  history 
which  are  so  easy  to  any  man  who  writes  history  in  the  interest  of  a 
theory.  One  who  writes  history  from  a  theory  has  no  need  of  facts. 
He  develops  it  all  from  his  own  inner  consciousness. 

A  recent  writer  ascribes  the  gloomy  Calvinism  of  Scotland  to  its 
bogs  and  fens  and  fogs.  He  forgets  that  Calvin  himself  lived  in 
Geneva,  and  Augustine,  who  taught  essentially  the  same  system,  in  the 
north  of  Africa. 

2.  This  theory  is  contrary  to  historical  facts  as  to  the  civilization  of 
the  same  country  in  different  ages.  Egypt,  with  its  early  science  and 
civilization,  Palestine,  the  mother  of  true  religion,  Greece,  with  its  un- 
rivaled culture,  had  the  same  cosmic  influences  in  ancient  times  as 
now.  Why  were  the  peoples  of  these  countries  so  great  in  ancient 
times,  so  mean  and  insignificant  now?  Why  was  Italy  in  ancient 
times  without  distinction  in  painting  and  sculpture,  and  yet  with 
the  same  soil  and  climate  and  all  cosmic  influences, ,  why  did  Italy 
take  the  lead  in  these  and  all  aesthetic  culture  at  the  renaissance 
and  after?  Such  questions  may  be  multiplied.  And  here  again 
the  theory  under  consideration  is  directly  contradicted  by  the  facts  of 
history. 

If  cosmic  influences  in  America  have  so  powerfully  affected  the 
Europeans  and  their  descendants  who  inherit  it,  why  have  they  not 
produced  in  them  the  distinctive  characteristics  of  the  Aborigines? 
Dr.  Biichner  appears  to  be  the  only  scientist  who  has  observed  any  fact 
of  this  kind.  When  in  this  country  he  wrote  to  a  periodical  called  the 
Gartenlaube,  a  communication  which  was  published,  saying  that  he  had 
observed  that  American  ladies  in  dancing  have  a  gliding  motion,  like 
the  stealthily  gliding  step  of  an  Indian ;  proving,  as  he  profoundly  re- 
marks, that  with  all  their  civilization  they  have  not  been  able  to  resist 
the  climatic  and  other  cosmic  influences  under  which  they  live.  The 
gliding  tread  of  the  Indian  may  be  observed  by  any  one  in  Cooper's 
novels.  And  why,  again,  were  not  the  differences  now  characteristic 
of  the  North  and  the  South  found  among  the  Indians  at  the  dis- 
covery of  America  ? 


*  History  of  the  American  Civil  War,  Vol.  I. ;  Causes  of  the  War  and  the  events 
preparatory  to  it,  pp.  91,  93,  242,  255,  113,  103. 


376  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

3.  I  believe  that  human  history  is  the  progressive  realization  of  an 
all  comprehensive  plan : 

"  Through  the  ages  one  increasing  purpose  runs, 
And  the  thoughts  of  man  are  widened  with  the  process  of  the  suns." 

But  it  is  a  plan  or  purpose  of  wisdom  and  love;  a  plan  in  which 
nature  is  not  merely  a  blind  concatenation  of  physical  effects  with  no 
law  except  the  invariable  succession  of  mechanical  facts  and  trans- 
formations of  force,  and  with  no  power  except  a  resistless  efficiency 
acting  without  intelligence  or  purpose  ;  but  nature  is  itself  a  cosmos  in 
which  the  truth  of  absolute  reason  is  expressed  and  the  wise  and  bene- 
ficent designs  of  reason  progressively  accomplished.  It  is  a  plan  which 
comprehends  also  a  system  of  rational  free  agents  under  the  moral 
government  of  God ;  a  rational  system  to  whose  higher  ends  nature 
itself  is  subordinate ;  in  which  law  is  the  truth  of  reason  recognized 
by  rational  free  agents  as  law  to  the  action  of  will ;  in  which  the  pro- 
gress consists  in  quickening,  disciplining  and  educating  rational  beings 
to  perfection  and  so  bringing  them  into  harmony  with  the  supreme 
reason  and  with  each  other  in  a  kingdom  of  God,  a  commonwealth  of 
righteousness,  good-will  and  true  blessedness ;  and  in  which  the  great 
result  is  progressively  accomplished,  not  merely  by  the  action  of  cosmic 
forces  on  physical  organizations,  but  by  the  influences  of  God's  gracious 
and  all-pervasive  activity  in  the  exercise  of  perfect  wisdom  and  love, 
and  through  the  agency  of  human  intelligence,  human  aspirations  and 
affections,  and  human  choices  and  volitions,  in  all  their  free,  rich  and 
complicated  activities. 

269.    Free-Will  and  Man's  Implication  in  Nature. 

Though  man  exercises  free-will,  he  is,  nevertheless,  implicated  in 
nature.  Nature  acts  on  him  from  without  as  well  as  within  his  phy- 
sical organization.  It  is  necessary  to  inquire  what  is  the  action  of 
man's  free-will  under  the  immediate  influence  of  nature  and  the  cosmic 
forces. 

I.    Man  is  implicated  in  nature. 

His  physical  organization  is  a  part  of  nature  as  really  as  a  tree  is. 
It  grows  from  a  seed,  as  the  tree  does.  His  body  like  all  bodies,  is 
subject  to  gravitation,  and  to  the  action  of  the  forces  of  cohesion,  heat, 
light,  electricity  and  chemical  affinity. 

He  is  also  implicated  in  nature  through  his  natural  sensibilities. 
Hunger  and  thirst,  the  sensations  of  heat  and  cold,  the  natural  in- 
stincts, propensities,  desires  and  affections,  are  only  indirectly  under 
the  control  of  his  will.  Through  them  man's  implication  in  nature 
reveals  itself  in  his  consciousness.  In  these  respects  man  is  the  crea- 


THE  WILL.  377 

ture  of  circumstances.  His  feelings  arise  as  he  is  acted  on  by  what  is 
around  him. 

II.  Man  is  also  endowed  with  reason  and  susceptible  of  rational  mo- 
tives and  emotions.  The  latter  presuppose  an  exercise  of  the  higher 
reason  and  are  always  motives  which  man  may  follow  hi  opposition  to 
all  impulses  which  come  directly  from  his  circumstances.  He  is  not 
left,  therefore,  helpless  to  the  force  of  winds  and  waves,  but  has  rudder 
and  sails  and  skill  to  manage  them,  by  which  he  can  compel  an  adverse 
wind  to  propel  him  on  his  course  ;  or  even  has  within  himself  motive 
power  to  propel  him  on  his  chosen  course  independent  of  winds  or 
currents. 

This  endowrment  constitutes  man  capable  of  free  choice;  and  this 
constitutional  capacity  of  free  choice  is  inseparable  from  the  man ;  no 
course  of  action,  no  acquired  character,  however  vicious  and  degraded, 
can  destroy  it.  It  cannot  be  annihilated  except  by  annihilating  the 
man.  Consequently,  however  ignorant,  vicious  and  degraded  a  man 
is,  he  is  always  capable  of  knowing  the  truth  which  reveals  to  him  the 
higher  possibilities  of  his  being,  and  of  appreciating  the  rational  mo- 
tives to  realize  them.  This  is  tacitly  acknowledged  in  all  efforts  to 
reform  the  vicious. 

A  child  born  in  the  slums  of  a  great  city  is  likely  to  grow  up  igno- 
rant and  vicious.  It  grows  up  not  only  under  the  adverse  influence  of 
present  circumstances,  but  also  of  a  vitiated  constitution  transmitted  by 
heredity  from  vicious  ancestors.  Facts  like  this  exemplify  the  powerful 
influence  of  outward  circumstances.  Yet  this  child  in  all  its  degrada- 
tion retains  the  capacity  of  moral  culture  and  discipline  and  the  sus- 
ceptibility to  influences  to  good.  This  is  not  only  acknowledged  in  all 
benevolent  efforts  to  save  such  persons,  but  is  verified  in  many  instances 
in  which  they  have  been  reformed  and  saved.  The  history  of  Christ- 
ianity abounds  in  instances  of  the  effectual  and  permanent  reformation 
of  wicked  men.  Facts  of  the  former  class  which  prove  the  power  of 
outward  circumstances,  must  not  be  used  to  prove  man's  destitution  of 
free-will,  with  the  suppression  of  facts  of  the  latter  class  which  prove 
that  the  most  degraded  have  power  of  will  to  resist  the  influences  of 
evil  and  to  reform. 

Dr.  O.  \V.  Holmes  says :  "  Do  you  want  an  image  of  the  human  will 
or  the  self-determining  principle  as  compared  with  its  prearranged  and 
impassable  restrictions  ?  A  drop  of  water  imprisoned  in  a  crystal ;  you 
may  see  such  a  one  in  any  mineralogical  collection.  One  little  fluid 
particle  in  the  crystalline  prism  of  the  solid  universe."  The  rhetoric 
here  is  better  than  the  logic.  No  one  claims  that  man  by  his  free-will 
can  lift  himself  out  of  the  universe  or  prevent  the  action  of  its  cosmic 
ibrces  on  him.  It  is  unfair  to  compare  the  effects  wrought  by  the  will 


378  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

of  a  single  man  with  the  effects  of  the  cosmic  forces.  But  in  the  true 
sphere  of  the  will  and  the  true  relation  of  its  action  to  nature  the  will 
is  entirely  free,  and  whether  it  effects  much  or  little  upon  the  face  of  the 
solid  earth,  it  effects  everything  in  the  sphere  of  morals. 

III.  The  freedom  of  man  from  the  necessary  control  of  outward 
circumstances  is  manifested  as  matter  of  fact  in  the  following  par- 
ticulars : 

1.  Man  in  the  exercise  of  free-will  may  resist  the  impulses  of  natural 
sensibility  or  may  concur  with  them.    He  can  resist  his  appetites.    Men 
have  had  force  of  will  to  resist  hunger  and  starve  themselves  to  death. 
So  it  is  with  every  appetite,  desire  and  affection.     Every  one  may  be 
resisted.     Under  the   full  force   of  the   motive,  a  man   may  choose 
another  object  and  direct  his  energies  to  that.     Even  the  desire  of  life 
is  no  exception.    Martyrs  deliberately  sacrifice  life  to  the  sense  of  duty, 
and  men  risk  it  every  day  for  various  ends  and  from  various  motives. 
Man  can  determine  to  follow  reason  and  do  duty  in  direct  resistance  to 
any  or  all  natural  impulses. 

Man  may  also,  at  his  option,  concur  with  natural  desire  either  with 
or  without  the  approval  of  reason.  He  may  obey  natural  desire  and 
disobey  reason ;  or  he  may  obey  reason  and  resist  natural  desire ;  or  in 
certain  cases  he  may  follow  natural  desire  and  reason  both  at  once. 
Even  though  in  following  a  natural  impulse  the  man  has  not  been  con- 
scious of  deliberating  and  consenting,  yet  this  free  consent  must  have 
been  given.  Man  cannot  divest  himself  of  his  reason  and  his  suscepti- 
bility to  rational  emotions.  If,  like  a  beast,  he  thoughtlessly  follows  his 
strongest  impulse,  yet  is  he  unlike  the  beast  in  this,  that  he  knows  the 
obligation  which  is  on  him  to  obey  reason.  Hence  we  properly  say  of 
such  a  man  that  he  has  given  himself  up  to  his  appetite,  that  he  has 
abandoned  himself  to  his  passion,  that  he  has  allowed  himself  to  be 
hurried  away  by  his  impulses. 

As  man  is  endowed  both  with  natural  sensibilities  and  rational,  the 
right  conduct  of  life  consists  in  regulating  these  contrasted  impulses  and 
keeping  the  right  course  under  the  motive  force  of  both.  Plato  com- 
pares the  two  to  the  two  horses  of  a  chariot ;  one  nervous  and  frisky, 
the  other  steady  and  grave,  which  the  charioteer  must  make  to  work 
together  and  persistently  draw  the  chariot  towards  its  destination.* 

2.  Under  any  circumstances  a  man  may  do  right.     We  sometimes 
hear  of  coercing  the  will.     But  physical  force  cannot  act  on  the  will 
directly.     The  will  cannot  be  coerced  any  more  than  an  inference  can 
be  drawn  by  horse-power.     The  man  may  be  imprisoned  or  bound  ;  his 
muscular  action  may  be  restrained ;  but  all  the  time  the  will  remains 

*  Phsedrus,  246. 


THE  WILL.  379 

unchanged  and  free  in  its  choice.      Force  can 
becomes  a  motive  to  choice  and  volition. 

"  Stone  walls  do  not  a  prison  make, 

Nor  iron  bars  a  cage : 
Minds  innocent  and  quiet  take 
This  for  a  hermitage. 

"  If  I  have  freedom  in  my  love,' 

And  in  my  soul  am  free, 
Angels  alone  that  dwell  above 
Enjoy  such  liberty." 

Because  man  is  free  he  is  under  obligation  to  obey  law ;  and  he  is 
able  under  all  outward  circumstances  to  do  his  duty.  And  here  I  may 
properly  cite  Kant's  apostrophe  to  duty :  "  Duty !  thou  great,  sublime 
name !  Thou  dost  not  insinuate  thyself  by  offering  the  pleasing  and 
the  popular,  but  thou  commandest  obedience.  To  move  the  will  thou 
dost  not  threaten  and  terrify,  but  simply  settest  forth  a  law,  which 
of  itself  finds  entrance  into  the  soul ;  which  even  though  disobeyed 
wins  approval  and  reverence,  if  not  obedience ;  before  which  the  pas- 
sions are  silent  even  though  they  work  secretly  against  it.  What 
origin  is  worthy  of  thee,  and  where  is  the  root  of  thy  noble  pedigree, 
which  proudly  disowns  all  relationship  with  the  passions,  and  descent 
from  which  is  the  indispensable  condition  of  that  worth  which  alone 
man  can  of  himself  confer  on  himself?  It  can  be  nothing  less  than 
that  which  lifts  man  above  himself  so  far  as  he  belongs  to  the  world 
of  sense,  and  unites  him  to  an  order  of  things  that  subjects  to  itself 
the  entire  world  of  sense,  as  well  as  the  existence  of  man  so  far  as  it  is 
empirically  determined  in  time.  It  is  nothing  less  than  personality; 
that  is,  freedom  from  and  independence  of  all  the  mechanism  of  na- 
ture ;  and  this  implies  that  man  himself,  considered  as  belonging  to 
the  world  of  sense,  is  subjected  to  his  own  personality  so  far  as  he  be- 
longs to  the  rational  system.  No  wonder  then  that  man,  belonging  to 
both  worlds,  must  regard  his  OVXD.  being,  in .  its  connection  with  this 
higher  system,  with  reverence,  and  its  laws  with  the  highest  vene- 
ration." * 

3.  He  may  reverse  the  influence  of  motives.  By  continued  resistance 
of  evil  inclinations  and  following  the  worthier  motive  man  may  so 
form  his  own  character  that  eventually  the  motive  occasioned  by  the 
outward  circumstances  may  become  contrary  to  wrhat  it  has  been. 
One  may  form  a  character  so  pure  that  scenes  of  debauchery  are  dis- 
gusting and  repulsive ;  another  may  form  a  character  so  impure  that 

*  Kritik  der  Praktischen  Vernunft :   Theil  I.,  B.  I.,  S.  214. 


380  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM/ 

the  smell  of  the  dram-shop  and  the  ribaldry  of  the  stews  may  seem  to 
him  an  irresistible  attraction.  And  the  latter  may  reform,  and  by 
continued  purity  may  come  to  be  disgusted  and  repelled  by  what  had 
been  so  attractive.  We  create  in  a  great  degree  our  own  susceptibility 
to  temptation.  The  fact  that  a  person  is  powerfully  tempted  to  evil 
may  be  evidence  of  his  blameworthiness  rather  than  an  extenuation  of 
it.  How  came  it  to  be  so  powerful  a  temptation  to  him,  when  to  his 
next  neighbor,  perhaps,  it  is  utterly  repulsive  ?  Why  is  he  not  tempted 
by  powerful  desires  to  a  life  of  purity,  industry  and  honesty? 

The  same  is  true  of  the  direct  enticements  of  evil  men.  Why  do 
not  burglars  invite  an  honest  citizen  to  join  them  in  breaking  a 
bank  ?  Why  do  not  debauchees  come  to  a  pure,  sober  and  industrious 
man  and  entice  him  to  join  them  in  riot?  Because  they  know  that 
his  character  makes  him  inaccessible  to  such  temptations.  But  let 
a  young  man  once  get  drunk  or  once  be  detected  in  theft  or  fraud, 
then  the  debauchees  and  the  criminals  hail  him  as  one  of  their  own 
number,  give  him  the  right  hand  of  fellowship  and  seek  his  partner- 
ship in  their  misdeeds. 

"  So  dear  to  heaven  is  saintly  chastity, 
That  when  a  soul  is  found  sincerely  so, 
A  thousand  liveried  angels  lackey  her, 
Driving  far  off  each  thing  of  sin  and  guilt." 

The  pure  character  is  like  the  angel  guard.  But  by  open  act  of  vice 
the  man  loses  this  protection,  the  angels  strike  their  tents,  and  the 
soul  is  left  defenceless  to  the  approach  of  the  tempter. 

4.  It  is  in  man's  power,  when  his  outward  circumstances  occasion 
temptation,  to  escape  the  temptation  by  changing  his  circumstances. 
If  a  reforming  drunkard  is  tempted  by  a  dram-shop  on  the  way  to  his 
place  of  business,  he  can  go  by  another  street.     In  this  way  he  can  aid  . 
himself  in  forming  a  character  so  pure  and  strong,  that  the  dram-shop 
will  cease  to  be  a  temptation. 

5.  The  man  can  lay  hold  of  aid  offered  by  others  in  resisting  temp- 
tation and  forming  a  right  character.     We  are  born  into  society ;  we 
are  members  of  a  community.     No  man  can  live  alone  in  independence 
of  his  fellows.     It  is  man's  normal  condition  to  depend  on  his  fellow- 
men.     It  is  true  of  every  person  that  a  great  number  of  persons  are 
engaged  every  day,  knowingly  or  unknowingly,  in  serving  him  and 
contributing  to  his  welfare.     It  is  no  infringement  of  one's  freedom  to 
depend  on  others  and  to  receive  their  aid.     And  always  in  every  state 
of  society  there  are  many  excellent  and  benevolent  people  who  would 
gladly  aid  any  one  who  has  fallen  to  return  to  a  virtuous  life.     The 
man  most  fully  given  up  to  the  control  of  evil  may  seek  this  help, 


THE  WILL.  381 

may  associate  himself  with  the  good  rather  than  the  evil,  and  thus 
surround  himself  with  healthful  influences  till  he  recovers  moral 
strength. 

6.  He  can  also  seek  the  help  of  God  who  ever  seeks  to  save  the  lost. 
All  right  living  must  begin  in  faith,  for  we  are  all  weak  and  depen- 
dent, as  well  as  sinful.     Whatever  be  the  moral  impotence  which  makes 
the  vicious  unable  to  cope  with  his  disordered  appetites  and  passions, 
he  at  least  is  free  to  cry  to  God  for  help  and  to  cast  himself  on  that 
divine  grace  which  will  be  found  sufficient  for  him. 

7.  The  will  has   a  limited  power  to   control  the  effects  of  natural 
agents   on   the   body.     The  power   of   the    mind    over    the    body   in 
reference  to  disease  is  well  known,  and  has  been  exhibited  in  a  great 
variety  of  well-attested  facts.     Dr.  Carpenter  cites  striking  examples.* 
Dr.  Brown  Sequard  says :  "  There  is  no  doubt  at  all  that  if  we  could 
give  to  patients  the  idea  that  they  are  to  be  cured,  they  would  often  be 
cured,  especially  if  we  could  name  a  time  for  it,  which  is  a  great 
element  of  success.     I  have  succeeded  sometimes,  and  I  may  say  that  I 
succeed  more  now  than  formerly,  because  I  have  myself  the  faith  that 
I  can  in  giving  faith  obtain  a  cure.     I  wish  that  physicians  who  are 
younger   than    myself  and  who  will    have    more  time  to  study  this 
question  than  I  have,  would  take  it  up.    .    .    .    Indeed  a  cure  may  thus 
be  obtained  in  certain  organic  affections ;  even  in  dropsy  it  may  lead 
to  a  cure."     It  has  been  regarded  as  an  historical  fact  that  Napoleon 
in  his  Eastern  expedition  visited  the  plague-stricken  in  the  hospitals  in 
order  to  prove  that  the  man  who  could  vanquish  fear  could  vanquish 
the  plague.     Prince  Metternich  doubts  this  as  having  no  better  author- 
ity than  the  false  bulletins  which  Bonaparte  systematically  published 
in  his  campaigns.     Goethe,  however,  accepting  it  as  true,  relates  a 
similar  effect  of  his  own  will  in  protecting  himself  under  exposure  to 
contagious  and  malignant  disease,  and  adds:  "It  is  incredible  what 
power  the  moral  will  has  in  such  cases.     It  penetrates,  as  it  were,  the 
body,  and  puts  it  into  a  state  of  activity  which  repels  all  hurtful  in- 
fluences.    Fear,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  state  of  indolent  weakness 
and  susceptibility,  which  makes  it  easy  for  every  foe  to  take  possession 
of  us."t     Mr.  Bray  quotes  from   The  Spectator:  "Almost  every  physi- 
ologist will  admit  the  power  which  pure  Will  has  over  the  nervous 
system ;  that  it  can  prolong  consciousness  and  even  life  itself  for  cer- 
tain short  spaces,  by  the  mere  exertion  of  vehement  purpose."     Mr. 
Bray  adds :  "A  pure  volition  is  the  correlate  or  equivalent  of  so  much 
physical  force,  and  this  change  of  vital  or  vegetative  force  to  mental, 

*  Human  Physiology,  $$  829-838. 

f  Eckel-mama's  Conversations  with  Goethe :  pp.  392,  393. 


382  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

and  of  mental  back  to  vital,  is  seen  to  be  one  of  the  commonest  acts  in 
nature,  when  once  observed.  There  is  always  a  sufficient  mental  force 
in  reserve,  if  the  will  be  strong  enough  to  bring  it  into  action,  to  act 
upon  the  vital,  that  is,  the  digestive  and  assimilative  powers,  and  thus 
to  gain  new  force  for  a  time  from  the  world  without."*  But  what  is 
this  will  which  brings  the  vital  force  into  action  ?  Advanced  physiolo- 
gists recognize  no  vital  force,  and,  above  all,  no  mental  force.  It  is 
all  mechanical  force  variously  transformed.  On  this  theory  there  is 
nothing  which  can  lift  itself  out  of  the  necessary  and  invariable  se- 
quences of  mechanical  action  and  bring  one  part  of  this  decaying  power 
into  action  to  quicken  into  intenser  action  another  part  of  this  decaying 
power,  and  so  to  arrest  the  course  of  natural  decay.  There  must  be  a 
rational  free  will. 

8.  Man  by  his  free  will  is  able  to  direct  and  control  the  forces  of 
nature  to  the  effecting  of  results  which  nature,  left  to  itself,  could  never 
have  effected.  He  tames  the  brutes  to  do  his  work,  compels  the  earth 
to  give  up  its  savage  growth  and  to  bear  his  harvests,  and  develops  the 
rude  vegetation  of  nature  to  bear  food  more  nutritious  and  luscious  to 
the  taste  and  flowers  more  beautiful  to  the  eye ;  he  puts  his  water- 
wheels  into  the  streams  and  compels  the  power  of  gravitation  to  grind 
his  grain  and  weave  his  cloth ;  he  evokes  the  forces  slumbering  in 
wood  and  coal  and  water,  and  compels  them  to  serve  him ;  he  lays  his 
hand  on  the  ocean  and  compels  it  to  bow  its  huge  shoulders  to  trans- 
port his  merchandise.  When  the  mind  of  man  takes  a  step  all  nature 
takes  a  step  with  him.  As  man  becomes  civilized  he  civilizes  the  savage 
earth.  The  time  will  come  when  over  all  the  earth  man's  selection  will 
have  superseded  nature's  selection.  "  Instead  of  the  thorn  shall  come 
up  the  fir-tree,  and  instead  of  the  brier  shall  come  up  the  myrtle-tree. 
The  wilderness  and  the  solitary  place  shall  be  glad  for  them,  and  the 
desert  shall  rejoice  and  blossom  as  the  rose."  Says  Wallace :  "  From 
the  moment  when  the  first  skin  was  used  as  a  covering  .  .  .  the  first 
seed  sown  or  root  planted,  a  grand  revolution  was  begun  in  nature,  a 
revolution  which  in  all  the  previous  ages  of  the  world  had  had  no 
parallel ;  for  a  being  had  arisen  who  was  no  longer  necessarily  subject 
to  change  with  the  changing  universe,  a  being  who  was  in  some  degree 
superior  to  nature,  inasmuch  as  he  knew  how  to  control  and  regulate 
her  action,  and  could  keep  himself  in  harmony  with  her,  not  by  a 
change  of  body  but  by  an  advance  in  mind.  Here,  then,  we  see  the 
true  grandeur  and  dignity  of  man.  On  this  view  of  his  special  attri- 
butes we  may  admit  that  even  those  who  claim  for  him  a  position  and 
an  order,  a  class  or  a  subordinate  kingdom  by  himself,  have  some  rea- 

*  Bray  on  Force :  pp.  102,  103. 


THE  WILL.  383 

son  on  their  side.  He  is  indeed  a  being  apart,  since  he  is  not  influenced 
by  the  great  laws  which  irresistibly  modify  all  other  organic  beings. 
Nay,  this  victory  which  he  has  gained  for  himself  gives  him  a  directing 
influence  over  other  existences.  Man  has  not  only  escaped  natural 
selection  himself,  but  he  is  actually  able  to  take  away  some  of  that 
power  which  before  his  appearance  was  universally  exercised.  We  can 
anticipate  the  time  when  the  earth  will  produce  only  cultivated  plants 
and  domestic  animals;  when  man's  selection  shall  have  supplanted 
natural  selection  ;  and  when  the  ocean  will  be  the  only  domain  in  which 
that  power  can  be  exerted  which  for  countless  cycles  of  ages  ruled 
supreme  over  the  earth."*  In  discussing  the  influence  of  climate  on 
civilization,  Dr.  Draper  meets  the  fact  that  cold  climates  do  not  produce 
the  full  effect  expected.  This  objection  he  ingeniously  repels  by  the 
fact  that  man,  "  as  endowed  with  reason,"  creates  artificial  heat  and 
thus  "  can  create  an  artificial  climate."f  This  not  only  exemplifies  the 
special  pleading  already  referred  to,  by  which  facts  inconsistent  with 
the  theory  of  civilization  by  cosmic  agencies  are  evaded,  but  also  ex- 
emplifies the  fact  now  under  consideration  that  however  man  is  impli- 
cated in  nature  and  whatever  the  effect  of  cosmic  agencies  on  him,  he 
is  able  by  his  free  will  to  modify  the  effect  of  these  agencies  and  to 
guide  them  to  the  accomplishment  of  his  own  ends.  The  civilization 
of  the  earth  itself  goes  on  with  the  civilization  of  man.  It  is  not 
merely  the  outward  world  which  modifies  man,  it  is  also  man  who  modi- 
fies the  outward  world. 

In  this  sense  man  has  dominion  over  nature  and  is  rightly  called  the 
lord  of  nature.  In  the  heathen  religions  man  is  regarded  as  subject  to 
nature ;  the  gods  which  they  present  as  objects  of  worship  are  powers 
of  nature.  But  in  the  Hebrew  scriptures  from  the  first  chapter  of 
Genesis  onwards,  God  is  recognized  as  above  nature  and  nature  ever 
dependent  on  him ;  and  man  is  recognized  as  in  the  image  of  God  and 
thus  not  submerged  in  nature  but  distinguished  from  it ;  to  him  is 
given  dominion  over  nature ;  he  is  to  use  it  and  all  its  resources,  its 
plants  and  its  animals  for  his  own  service  and  for  the  accomplishment 
of  his  own  ends.  The  writer  of  the  eighth  Psalm,  it  may  easily  be 
supposed,  alludes  to  these  representations  in  Genesis,  when  he  describes 
the  greatness  of  man,  as  made  "  little  less  than  divine  " :  "  Thou  settest 
him  over  the  work  of  thy  hands,  Thou  hast  put  all  things  under  his 
feet."  The  Psalmist  specifies  all  sheep,  and  oxen,  and  the  beasts  of  the 
field,  perhaps  as  being  in  that  day  the  most  striking  example  of  man's 
dom  nion  over  nature,  at  which  the  world  was  still  expressing  its  won- 

*  Anthropological  Journal :  1864. 

f  American  Civil  War.     Vol.  I.,  p.  104. 


384  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

der  as  we  are  now  at  the  steam-engine  and  telegraph.  To  this  latter 
subjugation  of  forces  a  modern  writer  would  be  likely  to  allude  as  his 
examples.  But  through  the  Old  Testament  the  fact  that  man,  the  wor- 
shiper of  a  God  above  nature,  is  himself  appointed  to  possess  and  use 
nature's  resources  and  energies  instead  of  worshiping  them,  continually 
reveals  the  contrast  between  the  Hebrew  religion  and  the  nature  wor- 
ship of  the  heathen.  The  author  of  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  alluding 
to  this  psalm,  says,  we  do  not  yet  see  all  things  put  under  man ;  he  has 
not  attained  the  consummation  of  his  dominion  over  nature ;  but,  says 
this  writer,  we  see  the  man  Christ  Jesus,  who  for  a  little  time  was  made 
lower  than  the  angels  for  the  suffering  of  death,  now  crowned  with 
glory  and  honor,  and  in  him  we  see  the  type  of  man's  exaltation  and 
lordship  in  the  image  of  God.  And  we  also  know,  though  the 
thought  is  not  expressed  by  the  writer  of  the  epistle,  that  through 
Christ,  the  type  at  once  of  man's  humiliation  in  weakness,  suffering  and 
death,  and  his  exaltation  in  the  likeness  of  God,  man  is  attaining  in  the 
progress  of  Christ's  kingdom  and  of  Christian  civilization  the  consum- 
mation of  his  possession  and  use  of  the  resources  and  powers  of  nature, 
and  thus  of  his  dominion  over  it. 

In  reference  to  this  power  of  man  to  subdue  and  civilize  nature  and 
thus  to  have  dominion  over  it,  we  may  accept  Jacobi's  designation  of 
free-will  as  a  miracle-working  power  (Wunderkraft) ;  that  is,  it  is  not 
determined  by  nature,  but  is  itself  able  to  direct  the  forces  of  nature,  to 
determine  their  effects,  and  so  to  cause  them  to  effect  what,  left  to  them- 
selves, they  would  never  have  accomplished.  * 

IV.  Man's  implication  in  nature  itself  indicates  that  he  is  above 
nature. 

Nature  in  some  aspects  seems  to  be  a  limit  or  boundary.  But  in 
other  aspects  it  seems  to  be  no  longer  a  boundary,  but  a  sphere  opened 
to  man's  knowledge  and  energies,  and  immeasurably  rich  in  resources 
for  his  use. 

By  the  senses  the  realm  of  nature  is  opened  to  man's  perception. 
This  is  not  a  limitation,  but  a  breaking  away  of  bounds.  For  the 
universe  of  nature  is  the  real  universe  in  which  man  lives ;  and  by 
the  senses,  as  so  many  windows,  this  whole  universe  is  opened  to  his 
perception  and  admits  him  to  expatiate  amid  its  grandeurs.  It  has 
been  said  that  nature  wakes  to  consciousness  in  man.  It  is  true 
at  least  that  through  the  senses  nature  is  imaged  in  man's  conscious- 
ness as  in  a  mirror,  in  which  nature,  if  it  were  intelligent,  might  see 
itself. 

Again,  the  perception  of  nature  is  the  occasion  in  experience  on 

*  Jacobi,  Werke,  Vol.  II.,  p.  45. 


THE  WILL.  385 

which  rational  intuitions  arise.  In  the  impact  of  mind  on  nature  the 
principles  of  reason,  which  regulate  all  intellectual  and  physical  power, 
flash  into  sight  and  remain  written  in  luminous  letters  on  the  mind, 
guiding  all  investigation.  By  these  man  passes  beneath  and  beyond 
what  the  senses  disclose,  knows  the  hidden  powers  and  agencies  of  na- 
ture and  its  rational  principles,  laws  and  ends,  and  translates  it  into 
'empirical  and  philosophical  science.  Thus  in  a  more  profound  signifi- 
cance nature  is  imaged  in  man's  consciousness  and  he  becomes  a  micro- 
cosm. As  from  eternity  the  universe  existed  in  the  truths,  laws,  ideals 
and  ends,  archetypal  in  the  divine  reason,  and  is  but  the  type  of  those 
archetypes,  so  man,  who  is  the  image  of  God,  surveying  the  universe 
from  the  hither  side,  reads  the  archetypes  in  the  types,  and  again 
idealizes  the  universe  both  in  its  sensible  forms  and  its  rational  princi- 
ples in  his  own  mind,  as  God  does  in  his  eternal  thought.  Here  again 
nature  is  no  boundary  or  limit,  any  more  than  a  flint  is  a  limit  to  the 
steel  which  strikes  fire  on  it.  It  is  the  occasion  on  which  reason  reveals 
itself  in  man.  It  is  the  seeming  obstacle,  impact  on  which  strikes  out 
all  aglow  the  hitherto  hidden  spark  of  reason  and  kindles  the  divine 
light  within  the  man,  which  at  once  reveals  his  reason  to  himself,  reveals 
nature  to  his  reason,  and  discloses,  both  in  the  natural  and  the  moral 
systems,  the  "  steps  up  to  God."  Byron  wished  for  "  something 
scraggy"  to  break  his  thought  on.  Nature  is  the  "something  scraggy," 
the  seeming  obstacle  and  limit,  on  which  the  mind  breaks  itself  and  dis- 
covers at  once  the  vastness  of  its  sphere  and  range  and  the  grandeur 
of  its  powers. 

A  similar  train  of  thought  is  equally  applicable  to  man's  will  and 
causal  efficiency.  Here  also  nature  seems  to  be  a  limit  and  boundary. 
And  certainly  the  savage  with  his  toolless  hands  is  shut  in  very  closely 
by  the  untilled  ground  bearing  weeds  and  brambles,  by  the  great  forests 
and  rivers  and  by  the  ocean.  But  man  in  conflict  with  nature  gradu- 
ally subdues  and  civilizes  it  and  gets  possession  of  its  resources  and 
powers.  In  so  doing  he  civilizes  and  develops  himself,  and  presently 
finds  himself  not  the  prisoner  but  the  lord  of  nature.  Thus,  again,  in 
the  conflict  with  nature  he  gets  possession  of  its  riches  and  resources 
and  of  his  own ;  he  discovers  at  once  the  wide  and  rich  sphere  of  his 
action  and  the  grandeur  of  the  power  with  which  he  acts.  And  in  like 
manner,  by  struggle,  conflict  and  suffering  his  distinctively  spiritual 
powers  are  disciplined  and  developed. 

And  here  even  death  itself  is  a  liberation  rather  than  a  limit.  By 
limiting  the  earthly  life  it  compels  the  spirit  to  look  beyond  death  to  a 
life  immortal  and  to  become  acquainted  with  God  and  the  spiritual 
Dowers  of  the  unseen  and  spiritual  world. 

It  may  be  added  that  man  is,  so  far  as  this  earth  is  concerned,  the 
25 


386  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS   OF  THEISM. 

highest  end  to  which  nature  has  attained  and  toward  which  it  has 
always  been  striving.  He  seems  to  be  endowed  with  all  the  forces  of 
nature  as  well  as  with  the  powers  of  spirit.  They  are  all  taken  up  and 
represented  in  him.  It  is  also  said  that  the  human  embryo  before  birth 
passes  through  all  the  inferior  zoological  types.  All  this  plainly  indi- 
cates that  man  is  at  the  head  of  all  creatures*  on  the  earth,  and  to  him 
all  nature  is  and  always  has  been  tributary.  Before  he  appeared  na- 
ture was  tending  towards  and  preparing  for  him ;  since  his  appearing 
nature  has  been  the  sphere  in  which  he  has  acted,  the  storehouse  of  his 
resources  and  the  occasion  and  means  of  his  development  and  progress. 

His  implication  in  nature,  therefore,  however  it  may  restrict  him  at 
particular  points,  is  in  its  whole  effect  on  him  a  liberation  and  develop- 
ment, not  a  restriction  and  a  stunting. 

I  add  a  fancy  which  is  not  inconceivable.  I  have  already  spoken  cf 
the  power  of  the  mind  over  the  body  in  preventing  and  removing  dis- 
ease, and  of  the  increased  attention  of  physicians  to  the  subject.  It 
may  be  conjectured  that  if  man  had  never  sinned  and  the  spirit  had 
always  exerted  its  legitimate  influence  on  the  body,  the  latter  might 
have  become  greatly  invigorated,  and  ultimately  a  "  spiritual  body " 
might  have  been  evolved  within  the  coarser  organization  and  at  last 
have  taken  its  place ;  and  that  instead  of  this  change  being  effected 
only  by  that  which  we  call  death,  it  might  have  been  effected  as 
imperceptibly  as  is  the  complete  renewal  of  the  matter  of  the  body 
every  few  years,  and  the  transition  have  been  as  gradual  as  that  from 
infancy  to  manhood.  Then  the  old  theological  doctrine  that  man's 
death  was  introduced  by  sin  would  become  true.  The  existence  of  the 
spirit  after  death  in  a  spiritual  body  is  the  culmination  of  the  spirit's 
freedom  from  restriction  in  nature.  It  is  conceivable  that  it  may  yet 
be  realized  in  a  way  more  in  accordance  with  the  course  of  nature  from 
the  beginning  than  has  been  commonly  supposed. 

\  7O.    Different  Meanings  of  Freedom. 

The  word  freedom  has  been  used  by  writers  on  the  will  in  four  dif- 
ferent meanings.  These  four  kinds  of  freedom  may  be  designated 
respectively  as  moral,  physical,  real  and  formal  freedom.  The  failure 
to  discriminate  between  these  different  uses  of  the  word  has  been  a 
source  of  much  confusion  of  thought.  The  first  is  moral  freedom.  This 
is  the  freedom  which  is  necessary  to  moral  responsibility  and  moral 
character.  It  is  the  freedom  considered  in  the  last  section,  and  is  the 
freedom  of  the  will  or  free  agency  in  its  proper  sense.  As  the  neces- 
sary prerequisite  to  moral  responsibility  and  character,  it  may  be  called 
moral  freedom. 

In  a  second  meaning,  it  is  freedom  from  coercion,  that  is,  from  ex- 


THE  WILL.  387 

ternal  constraint  and  restraint.  This,  for  want  of  a  better  name,  may 
be  called  physical  freedom.  This  is  the  sense  in  which  Edwards  uses 
the  word.  "  The  plain  and  obvious  meaning  of  the  words  freedom  and 
liberty  is,  The  power,  opportunity  or  advantage  that  any  one  has  to  do  as 
he  pleases.  .  .  .  This  is  all  that  is  meant  by  it ;  without  taking  into 
the  meaning  of  the  word  anything  of  the  cause  of  that  choice,  or  at  all 
considering  how  the  person  came  to  have  such  a  volition ;  whether  it 
was  caused  by  some  external  motive  or  internal  habitual  bias ;  whether 
it  was  determined  by  some  antecedent  volition  or  happened  without  a 
cause ;  whether  it  was  necessarily  connected  with  something  foregoing 
or  not  connected."  And  he  explains  that  the  only  contraries  of  freedom 
are  constraint,  by  which  a  person  is  forced  to  act  contrary  to  his  choice, 
or  restraint,  by  which  he  is  forcibly  prevented  from  doing  as  he 
pleases.*  Freedom  is  here  explicitly  denied  of  the  choice  itself;  all 
distinction  between  choice,  volition  or  determination  and  the  necessary 
impulses  of  nature  is  explicitly  disclaimed ;  and  the  freedom  is  expli- 
citly restricted  to  the  absence  of  coercion  compelling  or  hindering  the 
person's  action  after  the  choice  or  impulse.  Every  dog  which  runs  at 
large  has  precisely  the  same  liberty. 

Freedom  of  this  kind  is  not  essential  to  moral  agency.  Paul  in  the 
inner  prison,  with  his  feet  fast  in  the  stocks,  had  not  liberty  to  do  as  he 
pleased.  But  his  will  remained  free ;  he  had  not  lost  his  moral  respon- 
sibility ;  he  could  do  his  whole  duty  to  God  and  man. 

Freedom,  used  in  a  third  meaning,  has  been  called  Real  Freedom. 
This  exists  when  a  man  does  as  he  chooses  unimpeded  by  any  abnormal 
counter-influence  from  within  himself.  A  drunkard  resolves  on  total 
abstinence.  In  acting  according  to  his  resolve  he  is  hindered  by  his 
morbid  appetite.  We  say  he  is  not  free,  but  is  a  slave  of  appetite. 
The  freedom  here  spoken  of  is  Real  Freedom. 

Freedom  in  this  sense  is  not  essential  to  moral  agency.  Whatever 
sinful  habits  a  man  may  form  and  however  he  may  be  enslaved  in  sin, 
he  does  not  lose  his  moral  freedom  nor  his  responsibility  for  his  action ; 
he  does  not  cease  to  be  a  guilty  sinner.  He  has  lost  real  freedom,  but 
not  freedom  of  will. 

Real  freedom  exists  only  in  the  complete  harmony  of  the  rational 
and  natural  motives  with  one  another  and  with  reason.  It  can  exist 
only  in  perfect  holiness  and  the  complete  recovery  from  all  the  evil 
effects  of  sin. 

It  may  be  objected  that  a  person  wholly  sinful,  as  Satan  is  supposed 
to  be,  would  have  real  freedom  by  having  attained  complete  harmony 
of  his  being  in  sin.  But  this  is  impossible.  Reason  and  conscience, 

*  Freedom  of  the  Will,  Part  I.,  sect.  v. 


388  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

the  regnant  powers  of  the  soul,  are  always  opposed  to  sin.  And  in  the 
perverting  life  of  selfishness  the  sensibilities  themselves  come  into  con- 
flict with  each  other.  The  gratification  of  one  desire  is  the  denial  of 
another.  Appetites,  desires  and  passions,  fevered  by  selfishness  and 
morbidly  sensitive  by  indulgence,  contend  for  the  mastery.  "The 
wicked  are  like  the  troubled  sea  when  it  cannot  rest,  whose  waters  cast 
up  mire  and  dirt.  There  is  no  peace,  saith  my  God,  to  the  wicked." 

It  is  of  real  freedom  that  Augustine  says :  "  It  is  only  a  life  in  God 
which  is  truly  a  life  of  freedom ;  then  only  is  man  free  when  he  gives 
himself  up,  not  only  to  the  thought  and  idea  of  God,  but  to  God  him- 
self as  his  creating  and  molding  strength ;  that  God  may  be  the  all- 
working  and  all-moving  power  within  him.  Give  what  thou  com- 
mandest  and  command  what  thou  wilt."  It  is  of  this  freedom  only 
that  Fichte's  words  are  true :  "  One  must  pass  his  life  upon  some  idea ; 
and  that  life  only  which  is  molded  by  the  idea  is  truly  a  life  of  free- 
dom." It  is  only  of  real  freedom  that  the  theological  teaching  is  true 
that  man  lost  his  freedom  in  the  Fall.  When  in  the  writings  of  theo- 
logians, modern  as  well  as  ancient,  we  read  that  by  sin  man  has  lost 
freedom  or  free-will,  we  are  not  to  understand  them  as  teaching  that  he 
has  lost  his  free  agency  and  moral  responsibility,  but  only  his  Real 
Freedom.  It  is  to  be  lamented  that  the  word  freedom  is  often  used  in 
this  meaning  without  any  intimation  of  its  distinction  from  moral 
freedom.  And  it  must  be  admitted  that  in  many  cases  the  theologians 
themselves  had  not  discriminated  between  them  in  their  own  minds 
and  seem  entirely  unaware  of  the  difference.  In  fact  we  look  in  vain 
for  any  clear  exposition  of  the  freedom  of  the  will  as  the  basis  of 
moral  responsibility  and  any  exact  and  consistent  setting  forth  of  doc- 
trines consequent  on  it,  until  the  comparatively  recent  periods  of 
modern  thought.  The  fact  of  free  agency  and  moral  responsibility 
was  assumed  in  the  earlier  theology ;  but  the  lack  of  exact  definition 
and  discrimination  opened  the  way  for  affirmations  of  the  loss  of  free- 
dom by  sin  which,  while  true  only  of  real  freedom,  seem  to  affirm  the 
loss  of  free  agency  itself.  Dr.  Dorner  and  some  other  theologians  of 
the  present  day  have  not  cleared  their  thinking  from  this  ambiguity. 

The  fourth  kind  of  freedom  is  formal  freedom.  It  denotes  the  state 
of  the  will  antecedent  to  its  first  choice  and  to  the  acquiring  of  any 
moral  character.  It  is  the  characterless  will.  Formal  freedom  must 
necessarily  be  presupposed  as  existing  before  any  moral  action  or  char- 
acter. The  will  must  exist  before  it  acts.  And  before  it  has  acted  at 
all  it  must  be  entirely  undetermined  and  characterless.  This  is  the 
liberty  of  indifference,  which  has  no  historical  existence  except  in  the 
time  when  the  will  exists  antecedent  to  any  choice.  With  its  first 
choice  the  will  determines  itself  and  thenceforth  has  a  character. 


THE   WILL.  389 

Formal  freedom  is  not  essential  to  moral  agency  and  responsibility 
any  further  than  as  necessarily  presupposed  antecedent  to  all  choice. 
The  theory  advanced  by  some  that,  liberty  of  indifference  antecedent 
to  every  voluntary  act  is  essential  to  freedom  in  the  act,  is  contrary 
alike  to  consciousness  and  reason,  to  the  observed  action  and  history  of 
man,  to  sound  ethics  and  to  good  morals. 

No  person  remembers  his  first  act  of  will  so  as  to  identify  it.  So  far 
as  memory  reaches,  every  man  knows  himself  as  having  already  deter- 
mined, while  always  conscious  of  perfect  freedom  in  the  determination. 
Formal  freedom  is  recognized  only  as  a  presupposition  necessary  in 
thought.  It  is  the  point  d'appui  on  which  our  thought  respecting  moral 
action  and  character  necessarily  rests. 

\  71.    The  Influence  of  Motives. 

We  must  now  consider  what  is  the  influence  of  motives  on  the  de- 
terminations of  the  will ;  or,  what  is  the  nature  of  moral  influence. 
And  here,  as  in  other  parts  of  the  subject,  the  progress  of  psychology 
gives  clearness  and  precision  of  thought  where  in  the  old  controversies 
were  only  confusion  and  error,  and  carries  us  beyond  some  of  the 
questions  which  were  long  the  themes  of  fruitless  debate.  It  should  be 
noticed,  also,  that  the  fact  of  free-agency  has  already  been  established 
and  is  not  now  under  debate.  In  the  present  discussion  the  fact  of 
moral  freedom  is  admitted  on  both  sides.  The  question  is,  between 
believers  in  free  agency,  as  to  the  influence  of  motives  on  the  free  de- 
terminations of  the  will.  If  I  show  that  the  answers  to  this  question 
by  some  Christian  theologians  logically  involve  the  denial  of  moral 
freedom,  I  must  not  be  misunderstood  as  charging  them  with  intending 
to  deny  and  disprove  it. 

I.  The  only  motives  to  voluntary  action  are  the  natural  and  the 
rational  sensibilities  or  feelings.  These  are  in  the  constitution  of  man 
the  only  excitants  or  impellents  to  action.  External  circumstances 
and  agents  are  not  motives.  They  can  influence  the  will  only  through 
the  feelings  which  they  occasion.  Knowledge  is  presupposed  in  a  de- 
termination ;  a  determination  is  possible  only  in  the  light '  of  intelli- 
gence. But  the  knowledge  can  influence  the  will  only  through  the 
feelings  which  it  occasions.  It  is  often  said  that  intellectual  preaching 
is  dry  and  ineffective.  The  reason  is  that  the  preacher  addresses  the 
intellect  alone  and  awakens  in  his  hearers  no  motives  except  their 
interest  in  getting  knowledge  of  the  subject  discussed.  A  sermon  is 
designed  to  quicken  to  right  action  and  character,  and  in  order  to 
be  effective  must  quicken  the  motives  which  move  men  to  duty  and 
deter  them  from  unworthy  and  wrong  action  in  the  conduct  of  life. 
On  the  contrary  it  is  often  said  that  an  advocate  by  appealing  to  the 


390  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM, 

feelings  of  the  jury  misleads  them  to  a  wrong  verdict.  The  one  object 
of  a  jury  is  to  give  an  intellectual  decision  according  to  the  facts ;  and 
their  interest  in  knowing  the  facts  is  the  one  motive  which  should  move 
them.  Knowledge  of  the  truth  is  essential  to  right  action,  but  in  itself 
it  cannot  move  a  man  to  right  action.  That  is  possible  only  through  the 
feelings  which,  as  man  is  constituted,  incite  or  impel  to  right  action. 

II.  The  motive  is  not  the  efficient  cause  of  the  determinations  of 
the  will.  The  will  is  the  cause  of  its  own  determinations.  And  since 
the  will  is  only  a  name  of  the  rational  person  considered  as  capable 
of  determining,  the  rational  person  or  free  agent  is  the  cause  of  his  own 
determinations. 

The  will,  however,  is  an  agent-cause  of  its  own  determinations,  not  a 
transitive  cause.  The  will  is  the  agent  that  acts.  The  determination 
is  not  caused  by  a  causative  act  intermediate  between  the  will  and  the 
determination ;  the  determination  is  the  act  of  the  will.  This  imme- 
diacy is  characteristic  of  personal  acts.  If  then  we  distinguish  between 
an  agent-cause  and  a  transitive  cause,  the  agent  is  the  cause  of  its  own 
acts,  but  not  by  an  intermediate  causative  act. 

The  younger  Edwards  says :  "It  is  no  more  possible  or  conceivable 
that  we  should  cause  all  our  own  volitions  than  that  all  men  should 
beget  themselves.  .  .  .  The  most  of  our  opponents  hold  that  we  are 
the  efficient  causes  of  our  own  volitions,  and  that  in  this  our  liberty 
consists."*  The  doctrine  of  the  self-determining  power  of  the  will, 
controverted  by  the  two  Edwardses,  was  the  doctrine  that  the  will  is 
the  cause  of  its  own  determinations.  President  Edwards  argued  that 
the  will  cannot  cause  its  own  determination,  because  it  can  cause  it 
only  by  an  intermediate  causal  act  which  would  itself  be  a  determina- 
tion ;  and  thus  the  supposition  of  self-determination  would  involve  an 
infinite  series  of  antecedent  determinations.  He  further  argued  that 
the  determination  must  be  caused  by  something,  otherwise  it  would  be 
an  effect  without  a  cause ;  and  since  it  cannot  be  caused  by  the  will  it 
must  be  caused  by  the  motive :  "  It  is  that  motive,  which  as  it  stands 
in  the  view  of  the  mind  is  the  strongest,  that  determines  the  will." 
On  the  contrary,  Dr.  West  saw  no  way  to  defend  his  doctrine  of  self- 
determination  except  by  contending  that  a  determination  of  the  will  is 
not  an  effect  and  has  no  cause. 

If  we  recognize  the  distinction  between  an  agent  and  a  transitive 
cause,  and  admit  that  a  man  is  the  doer  of  his  own  deeds,  the  question 
at  issue  in  this  controversy  no  longer  arises  and  the  controversy  itself 
is  left  among  the  rubbish  of  the  past  wTith  only  an  historical  interest. 

Sir  William  Hamilton,  accepting  Kant's  antinomies  of  reason,  finds 

*  Works.    Vol.  I.,  pp.  324,  325.    Liberty  and  Necessity :  Chap.  ii. 


THE  WILL.  391 

an  antinomy  between  freedom  and  necessity.  He  says  that  free-will  is 
inconceivable  because  it  would  imply  that  a  determination  of  free-will 
is  an  event  without  a  cause;  and  necessity  is  equally  inconceivable 
because,  denying  the  possibility  of  a  real  agent  that  causes  his  own 
action,  it  involves  the  assertion  of  an  infinite  series  of  causes ;  every 
event  must  be  caused  by  a  preceding  causal  act  which  is  itself  an 
event,  and'so  on  without  limit.  Here  Hamilton  argues  in  accordance 
with  the  fundamental  principles  of  his  Philosophy  of  the  Conditioned. 
Both  necessity  and  free-will  are  inconceivable ;  they  are  contradicto- 
ries ;  one  must  be  true.  Then  since  consciousness  testifies  to  free-will 
we  believe  the  testimony.  We  know  that  we  are  free,  but  it  is  incon- 
ceivable how  we  are  free.*  So  Prof.  Jevons  says :  "  It  is  in  vain  to  at- 
tempt to  reconcile  this  doctrine  (of  free  will)  with  that  of  an  intuitive 
belief  in  causation."f  Other  recent  philosophers  have  held  the  same 
view.  This  conception  that  a  free  choice  is  uncaused  and  therefore  in- 
conceivable rests  on  Kant's  doctrine  of  the  antinomies  of  [reason.  I 
have  already  shown  that  these  are  apparent  and  not  real.  And  the 
same  is  true  of  this  alleged  antinomy  of  necessity  and  freedom.  If  the 
will  is  not  the  cause  of  its  own  determinations,  in  other  words,  if  the 
will  is  not  the  agent  that  determines,  then  the  existence  of  a  personal 
being  is  impossible ;  for  free-will  is  of  the  essence  of  personality.  Thus 
these  philosophers  are  logically  required  to  deny  free-will  and  moral 
responsibility.  Yet  in  spite  of  the  logical  demands  of  their  principles 
they  still  believe  in  free-will.  Their  reasoning  rests  logically  on  the 
assumption  that  the  existence  of  a  free  agent  is  inconceivable  and 
impossible  as  involving  events  without  any  cause.  Once  admit  that 
the  existence  of  a  free  agent  is  conceivable  and  possible,  and  the  anti- 
nomy is  dissolved  and  the  objection  disappears.  And  this  existence 
of  a  free-will  is  conceivable  and  possible  and  also  known  in  conscious- 
ness, if  it  is  true  that  I  am  the  agent  in  my  own  determinations  and  the 
doer  of  my  own  deeds. 

III.  The  motive  does  not  determine  the  will  to  choose  this  rather 
than  that.  It  may  be  admitted  that  the  person  willing  is  the  cause  of 
the  choice  or  volition ;  he  is  the  agent  that  chooses  and  wills.  And 
yet  it  may  be  urged  that  a  motive  determines  him  to  choose  this  rather 
than  that.  But  this  is  impossible,  for  the  gist  of  a  determination  is 
the  determination  of  this  rather  than  that  as  an  object  of  action. 
The  determination  by  the  will  includes  the  whole  action  and  leaves 
no  place  for  a  determination  by  the  motive.  If  the  motive  determines 
the  man  to  choose  this  rather  than  that,  then  the  will  does  not  deter- 


*  Hamilton's  Edition  of  Reid's  Works :  p.  602,  note, 
f  Principles  of  Science :  p.  223. 


392  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

mine ;  man  necessarily  follows  his  strongest  impulse,  and  has  no  will 
other  than  that  of  the  brutes.  And  since  feelings  are  called  into 
exercise  largely  by  external  things,  man's  action,  to  that  extent,  would 
be  the  necessary  effect  of  external  forces  acting  on  him. 

IV.  The  action  of  motives  on  the  will  may  be  called  influence ;  by 
this  name  the  action  of  motives  may  be  distinguished  both  from 
causal  efficiency  and  from  determination.  The  motives  do  not  cause 
the  will  to  determine  this  way  rather  than  that ;  they  do  not  deter- 
mine it  to  determine ;  but  they  influence  it  by  incitation  to  act,  by 
impulse  towards  this  rather  than  that ;  by  appetites  and  desires,  by 
affections,  affinities  and  repulsions,  by  scientific,  moral,  aesthetic,  pru- 
dential and  religious  feelings.  These  belong  to  the  constitution.  They 
move  man  to  action.  They  interest  him  in  objects  of  pursuit.  With- 
out them  man  would  be  but  as  a  log  floating  in  the  water,  desiring 
nothing,  seeking  nothing,  interested  in  nothing,  moved  only  by  wind 
and  wave  and  current.  Motives,  therefore,  are  prerequisites  to  the 
possibility  of  a  determination ;  for  without  them  man  would  have  noth- 
ing to  determine.  But  the  motives  do  not  cause  the  determination 
nor  decide  what  it  shall  be.  They  merely  incite  and  impel.  They 
influence  the  man.  The  determination  of  object  and  action  amid  all 
these  motives  is  the  act  of  the  will — a  simple  act,  incapable  of  analytical 
definition.  What  it  is,  we  know  only  in  our  own  consciousness  of 
choosing  and  willing.  In  the  light  of  reason  man  rises  above  his 
natural  impulses  and  all  his  motives,  surveys  and  compares  them  and 
their  objects,  and  determines.  It  is  man's  assertion  in  action  of  his 
own  personality  and  superiority  to  nature ;  in  the  determination  of  the 
will  he  takes  command  of  himself: 

"  Unless  above  himself  he  can  erect  himself, 
How  poor  a  thing  is  man." 

A  person  exerts  moral  influence  on  another  only  by  arousing  feel- 
ings which  incite  and  impel.  This  may  be  done  by  presenting  truth 
to  the  intellect ;  but  not  me'rely  by  that,  as  some  theorists  suppose. 
Feelings  are  communicated  from  one  person  to  another  by  sympathy. 
Laughter  and  tears,  cheerfulness  and  gloom,  calmness  and  agitation, 
courage  and  fear  pass  from  person  to  person  by  a  sort  of  contagion. 
The  presence  of  a  crowd  of  people  multiplies  the  power  of  eloquence. 
A  loving  heart  adds  persuasiveness  to  words.  Moral  influence  goes 
out  from  music,  from  a  commanding  presence,  from  a  magnetic  per- 
sonality. Enthusiasm  kindles  enthusiasm.  The  power  of  inspiration 
of  a  successful  educator  or  speaker  or  leader  is  not  merely  the  power 
of  imparting  truth  to  the  intellect,  but  of  rousing  the  motives  which 
impel  to  the  work  in  hand. 


THE  WILL.  393 

And  this  is  as  far  in  the  way  of  moral  influence  as  man  can  go.  He 
can  come  to  the  confines  of  another's  being  and  throw  in  his  persua- 
sions; he  can  instruct  the  intellect  and  arouse  the  feelings.  But  he 
cannot  pass  within  those  confines  to  determine  and  act.  In  the  invio- 
lable solitude  of  his  own  personality  every  man  determines  his  ends  and 
actions  for  himself. 

Influence  differs  from  physical  force  both  in  the  objects  related  and 
in  the  nature  of  the  relation.  A  bat  and  the  ball  which  is  struck  by  it 
are  different  in  kind  from  a  motive  and  a  will ;  and  the  force  imparted 
to  the  ball  by  the  stroke  which  puts  it  in  motion  is  different  from  the 
incitement  or  impulse  of  a  motive.  Persons  sometimes  speak  of  coercing 
the  will.  But  force  cannot  act  directly  on  the  will ;  it  can  reach  it 
only  as  it  excites. feeling.  Force  has  no  relevancy  to  the  will.  To  speak 
of  coercing  the  will  is  to  use  words  without  meaning.  And  this  is  not 
altered  by  the  fact  that  molecular  motion  of  the  brain  is  coincident 
with  feeling  and  willing ;  because  motion  cannot  be  identified  with  the 
phenomena  of  consciousness,  nor  transformed  info  them.  This  will  be 
shown  hereafter. 

In  the  more  intelligent  brutes,  appetites,  desires  and  affections  are 
apparently  the  same  in  kind  with  the  natural  appetites,  desires  and 
affections  in  man.  The  difference  here  is  in  the  different  constitution 
of  man.  As  endowed  with  reason  he  is  the  subject  of  rational  sensi- 
bilities inciting  to  action  in  spheres  entirely  closed  to  the  brute ;  and 
he  is  able  to  compare  all  motives  and  their  objects  in  the  light  of  ra- 
tional truths,  and  of  moral  law,  and  of  ideals  of  perfection,  and  of  good 
estimated  by  reason  as  of  true  worth,  and  of  his  relations  to  God.  Thus 
he  is  able  to  rise  above  his  nature  and  determine  his  ends  and  his  ac- 
tions. The  motives  incite,  but  they  do  not  determine.  The  brute,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  determined  by  the  impulses  of  nature ;  it  refrains 
from  following  an  impulse  only  when  impelled  otherwise  by  a  stronger 
impulse.  A  brute's  ends  and  actions  are  determined  for  it  in  its  nature  ; 
a  man's  ends  and  actions  are  determined  by  him  in  his  free-will.  The 
strongest  impulse  is  determinant  in  the  brute ;  it  is  not  determinant  in 
the  man. 

If,  as  some  insist,  brutes  have  reason  and  will  the  same  in  kind  with 
man,  that  would  not  prove  that  man  sinks  to  the  brute,  but  only  that 
brutes  are  elevated  to  the  man.  Brutes  would  then  be  moral  agents, 
responsible  for  their  actions  and  having  personal  rights  as  members 
of  society.  The  question  of  universal  suffrage  would  at  once  acquire 
a  new  significance.  And  a  new  reformatory  movement  would  become 
necessary  against  the  buying,  selling  and  enslaving  of  beings,  who, 
as  endowed  with  reason  and  free-will,  are  persons  in  the  image  of 
God. 


394  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

V.  The  determinations  of  the  will  are  always  made  under  the  influ- 
ence of  motives. 

This  is  a  necessary  inference  from  the  positions  already  attained.  The 
action  of  the  will  presupposes  causal  powers  to  be  exerted  and  directed, 
and  constitutional  impulses  of  various  kinds.  Without  these  there  can 
be  no  determination,  for  there  is  nothing  to  be  determined.  There  can- 
not even  be  any  action,  for  there  is  no  incitement  or  motive  to  action. 

And  this  accords  with  consciousness.  Whenever  we  act  we  are  con- 
scious of  some  motive  inciting  to  the  action.  It  is  only  by  presenting 
motives  that  we  try  to  influence  others.  We  never  expect  a  man  to  act 
without  a  motive. 

Some  controversialists,  opposing  theories  of  the  influence  of  motives 
supposed  to  be  incompatible  with  freedom,  have  gone  to  the  extreme  of 
denying  that  motives  have  any  influence  on  the  determinations  of  the 
will.  Prof.  Henry  P.  Tappan  says :  The  will  "  is  a  conscious  self-moving 
power  which  may  obey  reason  in  opposition  to  passion,  or  passion  in 
opposition  to  reason,  or  both  in  their  harmonious  union ;  lastly,  which 
may  act  in  the  indifference  of  all,  that  is,  without  reference  to  reason  or 
passion."  "  The  will  in  its  utmost  simplicity  is  pure  power."  If  we 
ask  why  it  determines  this  way  rather  than  that,  it  "  neither  admits  nor 
requires  any  other  explanation  than  this,  that  the  will  has  power  to  do 
one  or  the  other."  He  also  regards  the  indifference  of  the  will  as 
essential  to  its  freedom.  The  will  "  is  a  power  indifferent  to  the  agree- 
ableness  or  disagreeableness  of  objects  ....  indifferent  to  the  true 
and  the  right,  to  the  false  and  the  wrong.  .  .  .  From  our  very  defi- 
nition of  the  will  it  cannot  be  otherwise  than  indifferent.  When  it 
determines  exclusively  of  both  reason  and  sensitivity,  it  of  course  must 
retain  in  the  action  the  indifference  which  it  possessed  before  the  action ; 
but  this  is  no  less  true  when  it  determines  in  the  direction  of  the  reason 
or  sensitivity.  .  .  .  The  will  considered  in  its  entire  simplicity  knows 
only  the  nisus  of  power.*" 

Those  who  hold  these  doctrines  imperil  the  defence  of  freedom.  If 
moral  freedom  is  possible  only  if  the  will  can  act  without  any  motive 
and  even  contrary  to  all  motives,  and  only  if  the  will  is  in  complete 
indifference,  the  consciousness  and  common  sense  of  men  will  teach 
them  that  free  will  on  these  conditions  does  not  exist.  And  in  repre- 
senting the  will  as  power  only,  it  is  brought  to  the  level  of  physical 
force,  which  also  is  power  only.  Why  does  falling  water  move  a 
water-wheel,  or  the  elastic  steam  drive  an  engine?  Because  it  has 
power  to  do  so,  power  acting  without  motives  and  in  entire  indiffer- 
ence. How,  then,  does  will-power  differ  from  water-power  or  steam- 

*  Review  of  Edwards  on  the  Will :  pp.  226,  227,  244,  245,  247,  248. 


THE  WILL.  395 

power  ?  On  the  contrary  it  is  of  the  essence  of  will  that  it  is  rational 
power  or  energizing  reason  which  determines  its  own  end  and  exer- 
tions; and  its  choice  is  in  its  essence  an  elective  preference  and  not 
an  action  in  indifference.  In  fact  determination  under  the  influence 
of  motives  is  characteristic  of  rationality.  Action  without  motives  or 
contrary  to  all  motives  would  be  irrational  action.  Instead  of  being 
free  action  it  would  be  more  like  the  convulsions  of  epilepsy. 

VI. '  The  common  formulas  or  laws  of  the  uniform  influence  of 
motives  on  the  determination  of  the  will  are  ambiguous  and  worthless. 

One  formula  supposed  to  enunciate  the  law  of  the  uniform  action 
of  motives  is  this  :  The  determination  of  the  will  is  always  as  the  strongest 
motive.  If  this  means  that  the  determination  is  always  as  the  motive, 
the  object  of  which  reason  approves  as  of  the  highest  worth,  it  is 
notoriously  untrue.  All  sin  is  determination  contrary  to  the  mandate 
of  reason.  If  it  means  that  the  determination  is  always  accordant 
with  the  motive  which  is  in  the  consciousness  strongest  in  intensity,  it 
is  not  true.  A  man  who  has  been  enslaved  by  an  appetite  for  tobacco 
or  opium  or  alcoholic  drink  may  resist  it  in  obedience  to  reason  and 
conscience,  and  yet  in  his  desperate  struggle  he  is  vividly  conscious 
that  the  appetite  is  strong  and  the  impulse  to  duty  weak.  If  it  were 
true  that  man  always  determines  according  to  the  motive  which  is  in 
this  sense  the  strongest,  he  would  be  controlled  as  the  brutes  are  by 
nature  and  would  have  no  free-will.  If  the  formula  implies  that  we 
ascertain  which  the  strongest  motive  was  by  observing  to  which  the 
will  consented,  the  formula  has  no  significance  and  is  equivalent  to 
the  identical  proposition,  "The  will  always  determines  as  it  does 
determine." 

A  second  form  of  stating  the  law  is  this :  The  determination  of  the 
will  is  always  as  the  greatest  apparent  good.  This  springs  from  the 
Hedonistic  ethics  and  assumes  that  happiness  is  the  ultimate  motive 
of  all  action.  And  it  involves  just  the  same  ambiguity  as  was  found 
in  the  first  statement.  If  it  means  that  men  always  choose  that 
which  in  the  light  of  intelligence  they  estimate  as  the  greatest  good, 
it  is  not  true.  If  it  means  that  they  always  choose  that  which  seems  to 
insure  the  greatest  present  gratification,  it  is  not  true ;  and  if  it  were 
true  man  would  not  be  a  free  agent.  And  if  we  ascertain  what 
seemed  the  greatest  good  by  observing  the  determination,  the  law  has 
no  significance  further  than  the  identical  proposition  that  a  man 
always  determines  as  he  does  determine. 

A  third  form  of  stating  the  law  is  this :  The  determination  of  the 
will  is  always  as  the  last  dictate  of  the  understanding.  This  leaves  out 
altogether  the  sensibilities  which  are  the  only  real  motives,  and  con- 
nects the  determinations  immediately  with  the  intellect.  It  is  also 


396  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

untrue  because  men   often  determine  contrary  to  the  dictate  of  the 
understanding  and  in  accordance  with  the  incitation  of  feeling. 

VII.  The  uniformity  of  human  action  cannot  be  explained  by  any 
law  of  the  uniform  influence  of  motives  on  the  will.  Another  factor 
is  concerned  hi  this  uniformity ;  it  is  the  character  in  the  will.  By  its 
choice  the  will  forms  in  itself  a  character ;  and  by  action  in  accordance 
with  the  choice,  it  confirms  and  develops  the  character.  This  must  be 
recognized  in  explaining  the  uniformity  of  human  action.  The  attempt 
to  explain  it  by  some  law  of  the  uniform  influence  of  motives  assumes 
that  the  will  is  always  characterless.  Writers  on  the  will  wrho 
attempt  to  explain  the  uniformity  of  human  action  in  this  way, 
have  much  to  say  about  the  necessity  of  finding  the  laws  of  the  will. 
But  in  fact  they  are  seeking  for  a  law  of  the  will  which  shall  be  only 
a  necessary  uniform  sequence  of  nature;  should  they  succeed  they 
would  only  prove  that  the  determinations  of  the  will  are  a  part  of  the 
course  of  nature  and  subject  to  the  dictum  necessitatis.  This  would 
prove  that  personal  beings  do  not  exist  and  that  nature  is  all.  The 
real  law  to  the  determinations  of  the  will  is  the  moral  law  which 
declares  the  ends  to  which  rational  beings  ought  to  direct  their  ener- 
gies and  the  principles  which  ought  to  guide  them  in  their  actions. 
If  personal  beings  exist  they  must  at  some  point  rise  above  the  fixed 
course  and  uniform  sequences  of  nature  and  find  themselves  under 
obligation  to  conform  their  free  action  to  the  truths,  laws,  ideals  and 
ends  of  reason. 

\  72.   Character  in  the  Will. 

I.  A  choice  being  an  abiding  determination  of  the  end  or  object 
of  action,  constitutes  character  in  the  will.     A  will  that  has  made  a 
choice  therein  has  a  character.     As  an  abiding  elective  preference  of 
the  end  or  object  of  action  it  is  character.     As  choice   it  is  always 
active  and  free.     It  is  not  nature ;  it  is  not  sensibility  stimulated  in- 
voluntarily from  without.     It  is  elective  preference  or  choice.    It  may 
not  always  be  present  in  consciousness.      But  whenever  it  comes  to 
the  person's   attention  he  is  conscious   that  it  is  his  choice  and  con- 
scious that  in  it  he  is  free. 

II.  The  determination  of  the  will  exerts  an  influence  on  subsequent 
determinations. 

A  choice  exerts  an  influence  on  subsequent  choices.  For  example, 
in  choosing  learning  as  an  object  of  pursuit  in  life  in  preference  to 
wealth,  that  choice  carries  in  it  an  influence  on  a  multitude  of  sub- 
ordinate choices.  So  Agassiz,  when  asked  to  turn  aside  to  a  lucra- 
tive use  of  his  knowledge  in  the  service  of  a  great  business  estab- 
lishment, declined,  saying  that  he  had  not  time  to  get  rich. 


THE  WILL.  397 

The  resolutions  or  immanent  volitions  to  act  exert  forwards  a 
similar  but  less  powerful  influence.  A  man  plans  his  day's  work; 
resolves  what  he  will  do  in  each  hour  of  the  day.  He  may  become  a 
slave  to  his  plan,  or  be  entangled  and  hindered  by  its  too  great  minute- 
ness or  its  imperfect  adjustments  to  time  and  strength  and  unantici- 
pated avocations.  But  by  a  resolution  or  plan  he  may  determine  his 
course  of  action  for  the  next  day  or  for  a  series  of  days. 

Even  the  executive  or  exertive  volitions  influence  the  subsequent 
determinations.  They  confirm  the  choice.  By  persisting  under  all 
temptations  in  honest  action  one  confirms  his  honest  character.  And 
the  repetition  of  action  forms  habit  which  is  a  facility  of  action  and  a 
proclivity  to  perform  it.  The  acquired  facility  is  exemplified  in  learn- 
ing to  handle  tools  or  to  play  on  an  instrument.  The  acquired  pro- 
clivity is  exemplified  in  the  difficulty  of  breaking  up  a  habit.  The 
action  sometimes  becomes  secondarily  automatic  and  is  done  uncon- 
sciously. Hence  it  is  said,  at  first  a  man  carries  his  habits,  afterwards 
his  habits  carry  him. 

Choices  and  volitions  also  react  on  the  sensibilities  and  either  stimu- 
late or  deaden  them.  The  appetite  for  alcoholic  liquors  or  opium  is 
strengthened  by  gratifying  and  deadened  by  resisting  it.  Kuskin  says 
the  highest  happiness  is  found  in  seeing  the  corn  grow.  He  means 
that  a  man  realizes  the  greatest  happiness  when  he  keeps  himself 
fresh  to  the  enjoyment  of  simple  pleasures.  A  passion  for  gambling, 
for  excitement  of  any  kind,  grows  by  gratification  and  necessitates 
stronger  and  stronger  stimulus,  till  the  fevered  soul  becomes  incapable 
of  the  common  joys  of  healthy  life.  Men  can  educate  themselves 
even  to  the  ferocity  of  enjoying  cock-fights,  the  prize-fights  of  pugilistic 
bullies,  bull-fights  and  gladiatorial  shows.  In  like  manner  by  right 
action  they  can  increase  the  delicacy  of  their  moral  discernment, 
their  sensitiveness  to  good  impulses,  and  the  power  of  all  motives  to 
virtue. 

In  this  reaction  of  the  voluntary  determinations  on  the  sensibilities 
a  man  indirectly  modifies  the  motives  under  which  he  acts.  Thus  the 
motives  which  influence  a  person  of  mature  age  are  largely  the  product 
of  his  own  previous  action. 

III.  Voluntary  action  is  a  continual  formation  or  modification  of 
character.  We  have  seen  that  volitional  action  is  an  expression  of 
character.  We  now  see  that  it  is  also  continuously  a  forming  or  modi- 
fying of  character.  Every  subordinate  choice  and  volitional  act  con- 
firms or  in  some  way  modifies  the  existing  character.  "  Every  man 
hews  his  own  statue;  builds  himself."  Every  act  is  a  blow  of  the 
mallet  on  the  shaping  chisel.  Thus  man's  life  is  a  unity.  What  he  is 
now  is  the  outgrowth  of  what  he  has  been. 


398  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

"  The  child  is  father  of  the  man ; 
And  I  could  wish  my  days  to  be 
Linked  each  to  each  in  natural  piety." 

IV.  Since  character  is  in  the  will  and  is  primarily  the  supreme 
choice,  man  is  always  free  to  change  his  character  by  a  new  and  con- 
trary supreme  choice.  If  his  supreme  choice  is  of  self  he  is  free  to 
choose  God  and  his  neighbor  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and  ser- 
vice. If  he  chooses  thus,  the  new  choice  is  the  primary  element  of  a 
new  character ;  but  it  is  not  a  new  character  fully  developed  and  con- 
firmed. There  still  remains  in  him  all  which  he  has  builded  into  him- 
self by  his  action  in  accordance  with  his  former  supreme  choice :  the 
training  and  storing  of  his  intellect  well  or  ill ;  the  morbid  excitability 
or  deadness  of  his  sensibilities ;  the  motives  that  influence  his  determi- 
nations now  constituted  as  all  his  life  long  he  has  been  forming  and 
modifying  them  by  his  own  action ;  and  the  habits,  some  of  them 
masterful  habits,  which  he  has  himself  created.  Under  the  sway  of  his 
new  choice  he  must  by  continuous  right  action  build  himself  up  in  a 
character  of  Christian  faith  and  love,  and  in  so  doing  tear  out  all  the 
evil  which  he  had  built  into  the  whole  structure  of  his  character  in  his 
previous  life. 

It  is  evident,  also,  that,  although  while  his  former  character  re- 
mained he  was  free  to  choose  God,  yet  that  character  itself  being  the 
dominant  choice  of  his  will  and  having  with  the  influence  of  continuous 
action  formed  the  intellect  and  sensibilities  into  accord  with  itself,  must 
be  a  powerful  hindrance  to  a  fundamental  change  by  a  new  and  con- 
trary choice,  and  gives  small  ground  to  expect  that  the  man  left  to 
himself  will  ever  make  the  change. 

V.  After  the  will  has  acquired  a  character  by  choice,  its  determina- 
tions are  not  transitions  from  complete  indetermination  or  indifference, 
but  are  more  or  less  the  expressions  of  character  already  formed  and  of 
choices  and  determinations  already  made.  A  person  who  goes  to  his 
business  at  a  stated  hour  every  morning  does  not  make  a  new  complete 
determination  every  time,  but  acts  according  to  choices  and  purposes  of 
long  standing.  Nor  does  he  determine  anew  every  day  the  manner  in 
which  he  does  his  business,  whether  honorably  or  dishonorably,  cour- 
teously or  rudely,  carefully  or  carelessly,  energetically  or  lazily.  In  his 
manner  of  acting  he  expresses  a  character  already  formed  by  previous 
voluntary  action.  Some  acts  seem  less  closely  connected  with  the  pre- 
vailing bent  of  the  character  than  others.  But  it  would  be  difficult  to 
find  an  act  of  any  person  after  infancy,  not  influenced  in  some  degree, 
directly  or  indirectly,  by  previous  determinations  of  will. 

It  is  sometimes  objected  to  free-will  that  a  person  often  follows 
impulse  thoughtlessly.  It  is  asked  how  in  that  case  there  can  have 


THE  WILL.  399 

been  comparison  and  choice.  It  is  sufficient  to  answer  that  he  is  not 
divested  of  his  rationality  at  any  moment,  and,  if  he  follows  impulse 
without  deliberation,  it  is  by  the  free  determination  of  his  will  not  to 
deliberate.  It  is  his  free  refusal  to  consider  what  reason  would  require. 
The  same  is  implied  hi  common  language  when  it  is  said  that  the  man 
has  given  himself  up  to  the  control  of  appetite  or  passion.  But  there 
is  also  another  answer,  that  the  spontaneous  action  without  deliberation 
is  often  simply  the  expression  of  a  choice  or  purpose  already  made  and 
of  a  character  already  formed. 

The  theory  that  indifference  is  essential  to  freedom  necessarily  implies 
that  the  will  never  acquires  a  character  ;  that  voluntary  action  is  atom- 
istic,  every  act  disintegrated  from  every  other;  and  that  character,  if 
acquired,  would  be  incompatible  with  freedom,  because  it  would  be 
essential  to  freedom  that  the  will  be  always  indifferent.  A  man  may 
have  been  scrupulously  honest  fifty  years,  and  yet,  if  he  is  a  free  agent, 
his  will  is  in  indifference,  and  the  determination  to  cheat  or  steal  is  at 
every  moment  just  as  easy  as  to  deter  mine  to  do  right.  Persistence  of 
choice  and  of  character  in  the  will  is  thus  made  incompatible  with  free- 
dom ;  and  God  who  is  eternally  love  cannot  be  free.  And  this  conclu- 
sion not  a  few  advocates  of  this  false  theory  of  freedom  have  avowed 
and  defended.  But  in  truth  the  persistence  and  strength  of  a  choice  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  freedom  of  the  will.  The  freedom  lies  in  the 
constitution  of  a  personal  being  and  the  essential  quality  of  determi- 
nation, .whether  the  determination  persist  but  for  a  moment  or  through 
endless  existence.  A  choice,  however  long  it  persists,  is  always  a  choice 
of  the  will,  not  an  involuntary  excitement  of  the  sensibilities;  it  is 
always  the  free  and  active  determination  by  the  will  of  the  end  or  ob- 
ject of  action.  And  under  the  influence  of  all  sensibilities,  however 
modified  by  previous  voluntary  action,  the  will  determines. 

§  73.    The  Uniformity  of  Human  Action, 

I.  There  is  a  uniformity  in  human  action  and  a  consequent  possi- 
bility of  foreseeing  it,  sufficient  to  be  the  basis  of  confidence  and  the 
determination  of  action  between  man  and  man.  Xo  one  expects  that 
a  friend  whom  he  has  known  for  years  will  betray  him  to-morrow,  or 
that  a  person  long  known  to  be  honest  will  all  at  once  steal  a  watch  or 
defraud  a  widow  of  funds  in  his  hands  as  her  trustee.  Foresight  of 
human  action  is  the  prerequisite  of  far-reaching  statesmanship  and  wise 
legislation.  The  uniformity  of  human  action  is  the  basis  of  the  confi- 
dence of  man  in  man  which  makes  the  transaction  of  business  and 
indeed  all  domestic  and  social  life  possible.  The  homeliest  and  com- 
monest transactions  with  men  every  day  imply  the  confidence  that  they 
will  act  hi  the  immediate  future  as  they  have  been  acting  in  the  past. 


400  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS   OF  THEISM. 

Tables  of  statistics,  also,  are  said  to  establish  laws  of  averages  re- 
specting the  most  uncertain  of  human  actions :  a  certain  percentage  of 
letters  put  in  the  post-office  will  be  misdirected ;  suicides  and  murders 
from  year  to  year  will  bear  the  same  ratio  to  the  population. 

II.  These  laws  of  averages  are  too  indefinite  to  be  the  basis  of  any 
science  of  the  uniformity  of  human  action. 

At  the  most  they  determine  nothing  as  to  individual  action.  A  cer- 
tain number  in  a  thousand  misdirect  -letters  or  commit  murders  in  a 
year.  But  this  does  not  enable  any  one  to  foresee  that  a  particular 
person  will  misdirect  a  letter  or  commit  a  murder  next  year.  It  would 
hardly  be  accepted  as  science  to  say  that  six  per  cent,  of  all  unsup- 
ported stones  will  fall,  while  it  remains  impossible  to  designate  the  in- 
dividual stones  which  will  fall. 

The  laws  of  averages  do  not  determine  anything  even  as  to  commu- 
nities. The  average  that  is  true  of  a  population  of  millions  is  not  true 
of  the  hundreds  and  the  thousands ;  nor  is  any  line  of  demarkation 
established  defining  how  great  the  population  in  question  must  be.  It 
is  asserted,  for  example,  that  in  the  United  States  the  murders  annually 
will  be  a  specified  number  in  a  thousand.  But  I  know  a  township  set- 
tled more  than  a  hundred  years  ago  and  now  containing  some  five 
thousand  inhabitants,  in  which  no  murder  wras  ever  known  to  be  com- 
mitted. Of  what  scientific  significance  is  an  average  true  of  masses  of 
millions,  when  there  is  no  certainty  that  among  the  thousands  in  any 
particular  town  or  county  there  will  be  one  murder  in  a  century  J  Also, 
the  annual  average  of  crimes  in  New  York  city  is  greater  than  the  ave- 
rage in  an  equal  population  in  any  contiguous  rural  counties  in  the 
State.  And  the  average  percentage  of  crimes  in  the  last  decade  may  be 
widely  different  from  the  percentage  in  the  same  territory  in  the  first 
decade  of  the  century.  Cosmic  agencies  do  not  change.  Why  then 
does  human  action  vary  ? 

And  the  same  outward  actions  do  not  have  the  same  significance  as 
revealing  the  springs  and  laws  of  human  action.  The  law  distin- 
guishes various  kinds  of  homicide.  A  murder  incited  by  covetousness 
is  of  widely  different  significance  from  a  murder  incited  by  lust  or 
revenge,  and  must  be  the  result  of  widely  different  influences.  The  two 
cannot  be  grouped  together  as  of  the  same  import  or  as  proving  that 
man  acts  necessarily  under  external  agencies.  On  similar  grounds  Mr. 
R.  A.  Proctor  has  pointed  out  the  insufficiency  of  the  argument  from 
statistics  supposed  to  prove  that  marriage  is  conducive  to  longevity. 

Statistical  averages  have  sometimes  been  set  forth  as  disproving 
free-will.  They  seem  to  prove  just  the  contrary,  that  there  are  ele- 
ments concerned  in  human  action  making  it  impossible  to  reduce  it 
under  exact  scientific  laws  of  nature. 


THE  WILL.  401 

It  may  be  added  that  in  some  cases  we  may  question  the  correct- 
ness of  the  statistics,  or  else  the  fairness  of  the  grouping  and  inter- 
preting of  the  facts.  Que"telet,  estimating  the  probability  of  the  birth 
of  males  or  females,  says  that  once  in  a  certain  number  of  times  we  shall 
find  the  births  of  a  given  number  of  males  happening  successively.  To 
ascertain  the  relative  frequency  of  such  an  event  he  does  not  consult  the 
registers  of  births,  but  resorts  to  a  method  which  he  says  is  "  more  expe- 
ditious and  quite  as  conclusive;"  he  puts  forty  black  and  forty  white  balls 
in  a  bao-  and  notes  the  succession  of  colors  as  he  draws  them  out.  One 

O 

who  is  not  an  anthropologist  may  raise  the  question  whether  drawing 
balls  from  a  bag  involves  all  the  conditions  which  influence  the  birth 
of  children.  It  may  be  admitted  that  Mr.  Buckle  presents  facts  in 
discussing,  in  the  second  volume  of  his  history,  the  influence  of  Chris- 
tianity and  the  Christian  ministry  in  Scotland.  But  every  one  ac- 
quainted with  the  history  of  that  country  knows  that  he  has  presented 
but  a  part  of  the  facts  and  grouped  them  so  as  to  falsify  the  real  his- 
tory. It  is  as  if  one  should  collect  from  the  daily  papers  the  accounts 
of  all  the  crimes  in  New  York  city  for  a  year  and  give  these  alone 
with  comments  arguing  that  these  fully  represent  the  civilization  of 
that  city. 

III.  The  uniformity  actually  existing  in  human  action  is  compatible 
with  freedom. 

Character  itself  is  primarily  a  choice.  Yet  it  is  a  choice  which  per- 
sists, which  modifies  the  state  of  the  sensibilities  and  the  intellect,  and 
both  directly  and  indirectly  influences  the  subsequent  determinations. 
The  choice  itself  is  character  and  thus  is  the  basis  of  uniformity  of 
action.  This  gives  confidence  in  character.  A  man  long  known  to  be 
honest,  truthful,  beneficent,  high-minded,  is  trusted  accordingly.  He 
is  expected  to  continue  to  be  what  he  has  been.  In  public  life  or 
private  it  is  character  which  tells.  The  same  is  true  of  masses  of  men. 
One  could  have  predicted  the  contrasted  action  of  the  Puritans  and 
the  Cavaliers  in  Great  Britain  in  the  seventeenth  century,  and  of  the 
Dutch  Protestants  and  the  Spanish  Catholics  in  the  days  of  Philip  II. 
and  the  Duke  of  Alva.  But  the  uniformity  of  action  had  its  basis 
chiefly  in  character. 

Thus  the  free-will  itself  is  a  basis  of  the  uniformity  of  human  action. 
The  entire  conformity  of  will  with  reason  would  involve  uniform  right 
character  and  action.  This  uniformity  and  unchangeableness  of  right 
character  exists  in  the  highest  degree  in  God,  who  is  eternal  and  never- 
changing  love.  But  the  uniformity  which  is  involved  in  right  char- 
acter is  compatible  with  freedom,  for  it  includes  freedom  in  its  essence. 

Uniformity  of  action  among  men  arises  in  part  from  their  common 
constitution.  When  Mungo  Park  came  one  evening  weary  and  ill  to 
26 


402  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

an  African  village,  some  of  the  negro  women  ministered  to  him,  chant- 
ing a  ditty  the  refrain  of  which  as  translated  by  him  was  :  "  Let  us  pity 
the  poor  white  man ;  he  has  no  mother  to  bring  him  milk ;  no  wife  to 
grind  him  corn."  Men  everywhere  and  in  all  ages  have  the  common 
characteristics  of  human  nature.  They  think,  and  feel,  and  act  as 

men. 

"  Skins  may  differ,  but  affection 
Dwells  in  white  and  black  the  same." 

Uniformity  of  action  among  men  arises,  also,  from  the  action  of  the 
same  outward  agencies  on  their  common  human  nature.  If  an  Esqui- 
maux goes  to  the  torrid  zone  he  will  cease  to  wear  furs  and  to  eat 
blubber.  This  is  no  argument  against  free-will ;  free-will  does  not  con- 
trol the  weather,  nor,  directly  and  immediately,  its  effect  on  the  physical 
system.  Yet  free-will  does  not  therefore  cease  to  act ;  for  if  the  Esqui- 
maux did  not  leave  off  his  furs  under  the  heat  he  would  show  that  he 
was  not  a  reasonable  being.  His  arctic  dog  could  not  by  an  act  of  will 
throw  off  his  hair  nor  adjust  himself  to  meet  the  exigencies  of  the  cli- 
mate. Free-will  does  not  create  man's  physical  organization  and 
strength,  nor  the  action  of  cosmic  forces  on  him.  It  exerts  his  physical 
and  intellectual  power  and  directs  it  to  chosen  ends.  It  determines  him 
to  exertion  by  which  he  subdues  nature  and  makes  it  serve  him ;  and 
while  subduing  nature  he  develops  himself. 

Therefore  the  uniformity  of  man's  action  as  it  actually  exists  is  no 
argument  against  free-will. 

§  74.    Sociology  and  Free-Will. 

A  science  of  Sociology  consistent  with  free-will  is  possible. 

I.  An  attempted  sociology,  founded  on  the  denial  of  free-will,  cannot 
be  science.  It  has  no  right  to  call  itself  an  inductive  or  empirical  sci- 
ence ;  for  it  begins  by  arbitrarily  denying  or  ignoring  the  most  funda- 
mental, important  and  certain  of  all  the  facts  pertaining  to  humanity : 
free-will  and  personality,  moral  responsibility  and  character,  and  reli- 
gion. It  assumes  some  theory  of  knowledge  which  limits  it  to  objects 
of  sense ;  it  assumes  that  man's  action  and  character  are  caused  by 
the  same  chemical  and  mechanical  forces  which  cause  the  combina- 
tions and  motions  of  bodies,  and  in  accordance  with  the  same  chemical 
and  mechanical  laws.  A  sociology,  which  .thus  starts  in  dogmatic 
assumption  refusing  to  take  note  of  facts  patent  to  the  universal  con- 
sciousness of  man,  must  be  vitiated  with  defect  and  error  through- 
out, and  its  propagation  and  reception  must  hinder  human  progress 
and  benumb  the  noblest  powers  of  man.  For  example,  an  eminent 
professor  of  Social  Science  says :  "  It  is  incontestably  plain  that  a  man 
who  accepts  the  dogmas  about  social  living  which  are  imposed  by  the 


THE  WILL.  403 

authority  of  any  religion  must  regard  the  subject  of  right  social  living 
as  settled  and  closed,  and  he  cannot  enter  on  any  investigation  the  first 
groundwork  of  which  would  be  doubt  of  the  authority  which  he  re- 
cognizes as  final The  human  race  has  never  done  anything 

else  but  struggle  with  the  problem  of  social  welfare.  That  struggle 
embraces  all  minor  problems  which  occupy  human  attention  here, 
save  those  of  religion,  which  reaches  beyond  this  world  and  finds  its 
objects  beyond  this  life."  According  to  the  latest  conclusions  of  an- 
thropology religion  has  existed  among  all  races  and  tribes  of  men.  It 
is  notorious,  also,  that  instead  of  pertaining  to  the  other  world  alone, 
it  claims  to  regulate  life  to  the  deepest  springs  of  character,  and  has 
been,  one  of  the  most  powerful  factors  in  human  history.  It  is  itself 
a  great  sociological  fact  which  all  true  sociology  must  recognize.  As 
to  the  intimation  that  a  belief  in  any  religion  disqualifies  the  believer 
for  a  candid  investigation  of  sociology,  we  may  ask,  in  view  of  the 
almost  universal  existence  of  religion,  Who  are  to  be  the  candid  soci- 
ologists ?  Must  all  sociologists  be  atheists  ?  And  even  an  atheist,  if 
he  has  no  religion,  is  certainly  a  metaphysician  and  a  theologian ;  and,  as. 
Comte  has  somewhere  said,  the  most  illogical  of  them  all,  because  he 
busies  himself  about  an  insolvable  problem  and  gives  its  least  plausi- 
ble solution.  And  the  objection  against  religion  is  equally  pertinent 
against  morality.  The  law  of  universal  love,  the  first  principles  of 
truthfulness,  justice  and  benevolence  are  settled  beyond  dispute. 

"  The  primal  duties  shine  aloft  like  stars." 

Do  right  moral  convictions  and  character  disqualify  a  man  for  the 
candid  study  of  sociology  ?  This  writer's  assertion  respecting  religion 
sweeps  to  the  conclusion  that  fixed  moral  and  religious  convictions  are 
incompatible  with  candid  investigation.  If  a  man  would  suffer  death 
rather  than  do  a  dishonorable  deed,  that  character  would  make  him 
incompetent  for  a  candid  investigation  of  what  constitutes  the  welfare 
of  society  and  what  are  the  most  effective  methods  of  promoting  it. 
The  fact  is  that  a  virtuous  man's  ineradicable  conviction  that  the  law 
of  love  is  supreme  is  entirely  consistent  with  continual  progress  in  the 
knowledge  of  the  significance  and  applications  of  the  law  and  of  the 
best  methods  of  making  its  control  in  society  effectual ;  it  is  consistent 
also  with  the  correction  and  improvement  of  his  own  character,  and 
his  advance  in  the  delicacy  of  his  own  moral  discernment  as  well  as 
in  moral  power.  So  the  Christian's  ineradicable  faith  in  God  is  entirely 
consistent  with  increasing  knowledge  of  him  and  of  all  reality,  and  of 
the  applications  of  all  known  truth  in  promoting  the  welfare  of  man. 
There  is  no  more  inconsistency  here  than  there  is  between  an  astrono- 


404  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

mer's  ineradicable  belief  in  the  law  of  gravitation  and  the  revolution 
of  the  earth  around  the  sun,  and  his  correction  of  old  errors  and  ac- 
quisition of  new  astronomical  knowledge  from  year  to  year  through  his 
whole  life. 

II.  Sociology  will  never  reduce  human  action  to  the  exactness  of 
mechanical  laws.     This  is  impossible  for  the  simple  reason  that  man  is 
not  a  machine  but  a  person.     Free-will  is  a  power  above  mechanism. 
The  law  to  personal  free-agents  is  the  moral  law,  the  law  of  love ;  not 
the  uniform  sequences  of  mechanism  and  chemical  affinity.     And  it  is 
inherent  in  the  very  essence  of  free-will  that  it  can  disobey  law.     Hence 
the  actions  of  particular  persons  or  communities  cannot  be  foretold 
with  unerring  accuracy.     The  man  wrho  was  a  blasphemer  in  the  morn- 
ing may  be  a  penitent  at  night.     The  young  man  who  till  yesterday  has 
abstained  from  intoxicating  drink  may  drink  to  drunkenness  to-day. 
A  community  quiet  under  despotism  this  year  may  be  in  armed  revolu- 
tion the  next.     In  the  Duke  of  Alva's  time  a  Protestant  fleeing  from 
an  officer  of  the  Inquisition  crossed  a  frozen  lake.     His  pursuer  broke 
through  the  ice  and  was  Hkely  to  be  drowned ;  the  fugitive,  hearing  his 
cries,  returned  and  rescued  him  from  death.     Then  the  officer  seized 
the  unarmed  and  defenceless  man  and  delivered  him  up  to  the  Inquisi- 
tion.    No  person,  probably,  would  have  predicted  that  a  man  would 
make  this  return  to  one  who  had  voluntarily  come  back  to  him  and 
saved  him  from  death.     In  all  calculations  as  to  the  probability  of 
human  action,  the  moral  character  of  a  person  or  a  community,  ac- 
quired by  free  choice,  must  be  taken  into  account.     The  very  same 
agencies    and   influences  which    move   one    person   or  community  to 
righteous  and  benevolent  action  will  move  a  person  or  community  of 
different  moral  character  to  unrighteous  and  selfish  action. 

III.  There  is  a  sphere  for  a  sociology  compatible  with  free-will  in 
the  uniformity  actually  found  in  human  action  and  arising  not  merely 
from   the   common   constitution   and   common   outward  conditions  of 
men,  but   also    from   free   choice  itself  as  it  forms  moral   character, 
determines  the  effect  of  outward  agencies  on  the  action,  modifies  the 
constitutional  powers  and  susceptibilities,  and  guides  and  directs  their 
development. 

By  the  study  of  man  as  he  is  and  has  been,  sociology  may  ascertain 
what  ends  it  is  possible  to  attain  for  his  welfare  and  what  are  im- 
possible from  the  limitations  of  his  being;  what  welfare  can  be  realized 
for  him  directly  by  his  own  free  choice,  and  what  can  be  realized  only 
by  a  gradual  amelioration  of  his  condition  through  a  larger  knowledge 
and  control  of  the  resources  of  nature  and  a  further  training  and  de- 
velopment of  the  man.  It  may  open  the  way  to  wiser  -legislation  and 
statesmanship  by  disclosing  the  immediate  or  proximate  ends  to  be 


THE  WILL.  405 

aimed  at  In  human  progress,  the  principles  which  must  guide  and  the 
methods  which  are  most  effective  in  attaining  those  ends. 

In  a  paper  read  before  the  American  Social  Science  Association  in 
1869,  General  Garfield  said :  "  Society  is  an  organism  whose  elements 
and  forces  conform  to  laws  as  constant  and  pervasive  as  those  which 
govern  the  material  universe,  and  the  study  of  these  laws  will  enable 
man  to  ameliorate  his  condition,  to  emancipate  himself  from  the  cruel 
dominion  of  superstition  and  from  countless  evils  which  were  once 
thought  beyond  his  control,  and  will  make  him  the  master,  rather 
than  the  slave  of  nature."  This  is  true,  with  the  explanation  that 
society  is  subject  both  to  the  laws  of  nature  and  to  the  moral  law.  As 
implicated  in  nature  man  is  subject  to  the  laws  and  course  of  nature  ; 
in  heredity  and  all  physiological  and  physical  processes  nature  acts 
through  his  physical  organization  as  really  as  through  the  trees.  Here 
is  one  sphere  of  sociology  in  studying  the  physical  and  physiological 
laws  of  man's  nature  and  applying  them  to  improve  his  physical 
condition,  constitution  and  development.  But  as  a  rational  free-agent 
man  is  above  the  fixed  course  of  nature ;  he  determines  the  direction 
and  exertion  of  his  energies  and  so  becomes,  as  Gen.  Garfield  says, 
"  the  master  rather  than  the  slave  of  nature."  As  rational  and  free, 
the  law  to  which  he  is  subject  is  the  moral  law  of  love.  This  does  not, 
like  a  law  of  nature,  declare  the  uniform  fact  that  he  does  conform  to 
the  law,  but  only  his  obligation  or  duty,  while  he  is  free  to  obey  or  dis- 
obey. Here  is  another  and  higher  sphere  of  sociology,  in  investigating 
the  dependence  of  the  prosperity  and  progress  of  society  on  the  devel- 
opment of  man's  moral  and  spiritual  capacities  and  on  his  conformity 
to  the  law  of  love  to  God  and  man,  and  in  studying  the  motives  and 
the  methods  of  presenting  them  most  influential  in  inducing  men  to 
live  right  and  so  to  realize  the  highest  possibilities  of  their  being. 
Here,  in  entire  consistency  with  man's  freedom,  sociology  may  investi- 
gate what  the  well-being  of  the  individual  and  of  society  is  and  what 
are  the  wise  methods  of  promoting  it.  All  questions  of  reform  and 
progress  and  of  the  methods  of  promoting  them  are  within  its  sphere : 
as,  the  legitimate  sphere  of  legislation  in  promoting  good  morals ;  the 
penal  legislation  most  effective  to  protect  society  from  crime ;  the  legis- 
lation which  will  present  the  most  influential  motives  to  stimulate  in- 
dustry and  to  insure  the  largest  development  of  the  resources  of  the 
country.  For  instance,  sociology  may  ascertain  in  respect  to  protection 
or  free-trade  whether  legislation  should  follow  the  principle  that  the 
prosperity  of  a  nation  is  promoted  by  the  peaceful  prosperity  of  other 
nations,  or  the  contrary  principle  that  the  prosperity  of  a  nation  is 
hindered  by  the  prosperity  of  other  nations.  Whichever  principle  is 
found  to  be  sustained  by  facts,  sociology  will  proceed  to  ascertain  what 
methods  are  most  effective  in  applying  the  principle. 


406  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

In  such  studies,  however,  the  sociologist  must  not  refuse  to  take  notice 
of  the  principles  of  morals  and  religion,  nor  dismiss  with  a  sneer  as 
"  sentimentalists  "  and  "  doctrinaires  "  those  who  are  trying  to  advance  so- 
v  ciety  towards  conformity  with  these  principles  as  essential  to  its  true  wel- 
fare. Recognizing  morality  and  religion  as  great  factors  in  human  his- 
tory, sociology  must  ascertain  by  what  errors  and  misapplications  they 
have  been  perverted  from  their  legitimate  influence,  and  by  what 
methods  they  can  be  made  most  effective  in  eradicating  vice  and  purify- 
ing and  elevating  the  moral  and  spiritual  tone  of  society.  The  educa- 
tion of  the  young,  for  example,  is  a  topic  for  sociological  investigation. 
But  the  question  of  moral  and  religious  instruction  is  inseparable 
from  the  institution  of  public  schools.  The  restriction  of  education  in 
the  public  schools  to  intellectual  instruction,  excluding  the  teaching 
of  morals  as  founded  in  reverence  for  God  and  consisting  in  love  to 
God  and  our  neighbor  as  commanded  by  God's  law,  is  a  very  simple 
way  of  settling  the  question.  It  is  as  unscientific  and  superficial  as  it 
is  simple,  and  if  ever  generally  carried  strictly  into  practice,  will  prove 
itself  a  fatal  error." 

It  has  been  found  in  the  progress  of  the  Christian  nations,  which 
for  ages  have  been  the  only  progressive  ones,  that  the  principles 
which  society  has  gradually  come  to  apply  in  the  development  of  its 
civilization,  are  the  same  which  are  taught  in  the  life  and  teaching  of 
Christ.  The  dignity  and  worth  of  a'  man  by  virtue  of  his  personality, 
or,  as  we  say,  his  manhood ;  the  consequent  sacredness  of  his  rights ; 
the  rights  of  the  individual  in  society  as  against  despotic  govern- 
ment, and  the  duties  of  society,  however  governed,  to  the  individual  ; 
these  and  kindred  truths  have  been  powers  in  the  political  progress 
of  the  three  last  centuries.  Whatever  speculative  recognition  of  them 
may  be  found  here  and  there  among  the  greatest  heathen  writers,  it  is 
indisputably  Christianity  which  has  made  them  practical  powers  in 
the  creation  of  modern  civilization.  It  was  the  revival  of  Christianity 
in  the  Protestant  Reformation,  going  back  beyond  accumulated  tradi- 
tions and  corruptions  to  the  primitive  principles  and  power  of  Chris- 
tianity, which  initiated  this  great  movement  and  has  given  it  its 
vitality.  The  principles"  which  are  to  solve  the  social  problems  now 
urgent,  lie  waiting  their  application  in  the  Christian  law  of  service: 
"  Whosoever  would  become  great  among  you  shall  be  your  minister ; 
and  whosoever  would  be  first  among  you  shall  be  your  servant ;  even  as 
the  Son  of  man  came  not  to  be  ministered  unto,  but  to  minister,  and  to 
give  his  life  a  ransom  for  many ; " — Greatness  for  service ;  Greatness  by 
service.  And  this  principle  our  Lord  announces  explicitly  as  the 
principle  of  a  new  and  Christian  civilization :  "  Ye  know  that  the 
rulers  of  the  Gentiles  lord  it  over  them,  and  their  great  ones  exercise 
authority  over  them.  Not  so  shall  it  be  among  you.'* 


THE  WILL.  407 

Thus  the  progress  of  Christian  civilization  has  been  the  slow  but 
brightening  revelation  of  the  gospel  of  Christ  as  "  good  tidings  of  great 
joy,  which  shall  be  to  all  the  people ; "  "  The  poor  have  good  tidings 
preached  to  them." 

"  Let  knowledge  grow  from  more  to  more, 
And  more  of  reverence  in  us  dwell ; 
That  mind  and  soul  according  well, 
May  make  one  music  as  before, 
But  vaster." 


CHAPTER  XVI. 
PEKSONALITY. 


I  75.    Definitions. 

I.  A  PEKSON  is  a  being  conscious  of  self,  subsisting  in  individuality 
and  identity,  and  endowed  with  intuitive  reason,  rational  sensibility 
and  free-will.  All  beings  constitutionally  devoid  of  these  characteris- 
tics are  impersonal. 

God  alone  is  self-existent  and  independent,  unconditioned  and  all- 
conditioning.  Finite  persons  are  always  dependent  on  him ;  but  they 
are  in  the  image  of  God  as  endowed  with  reason  and  free-will,  and  are 
also  in  some  respects  self-conditioning. 

Hamilton  remarks  that  while  physical  action  is  conditioned  in  space 
and  time,  the  action  of  the  human  mind  is  not  conditioned  in  space, 
but  in  consciousness  and  time.  But  because  the  mind  is  conscious  of 
itself  in  all  its  acts  and  its  consciousness  -is  spontaneous  and  entirely 
within  itself,  it  may  be  said  to  be,  in  this  respect,  self-conditioning. 

A  personal  being  has  also  intuitive  knowledge  of  rational  principles. 
Thus  is  opened  to  him  those  ultimate  realities  of  reason,  the  True,  the 
Right,  the  Perfect  and  the  Good.  He  is  therefore  autonomic ;  the 
truth  that  enlightens  and  the  laws  that  regulate  thought  and  action  are 
within  himself.  And  the  Good,  which  is  the  end  to  be  acquired  for 
himself,  since  it  consists  primarily  in  his  own  perfection,  is  within  him- 
self. And  to  this  extent  he  is  self-conditioning. 

He  also  has  knowledge  of  outward  things,  not  as  phenomena  merely 
but  as  real  beings,  and  of  their  real  energies ;  by  his  rational  intelligence 
he  discovers  the  scientific  principles  and  laws  which  regulate  nature, 
and  the  cosmos  or  orderly  system  which  it  constitutes.  In  the  light  of 
reason  he  reads  in  nature  tne  archetypal  thoughts  wrhich  it  expresses 
and  the  rational  ends  which  it  subserves.  Thus  nature  does  not  so 
much  hem  him  in  with  limits  as  it  opens  a  sphere  to  his  thoughts  and 
reveals  to  him  the  grandeur  of  his  own  reason. 

In  his  rational  sensibilities  his  being  lies  open  to  influences   that 

come  on  him  from  the  sphere  of  the  spiritual ;   he  becomes  conscious 

of  a  presence  and  a  power  transcending  sense  and  arousing  him  to 

interest  in  truth  and  right,  in  perfection  and  beauty,  and  in  good  which 

408 


PERSONALITY.  409 

reason  estimates  as  having  worth  and  in  comparison  with  which  sensual 
enjoyment  is  held  of  small  account. 

In  his  will  he  is  self-directing,  self-acting  and  free.  Here  also  nature, 
which  seemed  a  restriction,  is  found  to  open  a  sphere  of  action  in  which 
man  conquers  nature  and  compelling  it  to  reveal  and  surrender  to 
him  its  powers  and  resources,  develops  himself  and  discovers  and  re- 
veals his  own  powers. 

In  all  these  respects  man  is  self-conditioning.  And,  as  in  the  enlarge- 
ment of  his  knowledge  and  the  development  of  his  powers  he  comes 
upon  the  conditions  and  limitations  of  his  being,  he  finds  them  not 
ultimately  in  nature,  but  rather  in  his  dependence  on  God  and  his  sub- 
jection, to  his  law.  Thus  the  very  limitations  and  conditions  of  his 
being  reveal  his  greatness,  as  subject  ultimately  only  to  the  supreme 
and  absolute  Reason,  hedged  about  only  with  the  truth  and  laws,  the 
ideas  and  ends  eternal  in  the  divine  wisdom  and  love,  and  bound  within 
these  flaming  barriers  to  be  a  worker  together  with  God  in  the  univer- 
sal moral  system  for  the  realization  of  its  highest  ends. 

The  component  parts  of  this  definition  have  already  been  considered 
and  need  no  further  explanation. 

II.  A  Moral  Agent  is  a  person  considered  as  under  obligation  to 
obey  the  moral  law,  with  freedom  to  obey  or  disobey  it,  and  thus  re- 
sponsible for  his  action  and  character  as  right  or  wrong.     All  moral 
agents  are  persons.     An  impersonal  being  cannot  be  a  moral  agent. 
A  dog  may  neglect  every  duty  required  in  the  moral  law ;  but  it  cannot 
be  a  transgressor  of  the  law,  for  it  is  constituted  incapable  of  knowing 
the  law  and  destitute  of  the  qualities  of  a  free  and  responsible  person. 

There  may  be,  however,  persons  or  moral  beings  who  cannot  with 
strict  propriety  be  called  moral  agents.  A  new-born  infant  is  properly 
called  a  person  or  moral  being,  because  it  has  the  constitution  of  a 
person,  though  not  yet  developed  into  action.  So  the  newly-born  whelp 
of  a  tiger  is  properly  called  a  carnivorous  animal,  though  a  long  time 
may  pass  before  it  becomes  capable  of  eating  flesh.  Yet  this  infant  can 
hardly  be  called  with  propriety  a  moral  agent  until  it  is  capable  of  the 
consciousness  of  moral  obligation  and  of  responsibility  for  its  actions. 

III.  Nature  is  the  whole  of  impersonal  being  considered  as  con- 
ditioned in  space  and  time  and  the  subject  of  continuous  transition  in 
the  uniform  and  necessary  sequences  of  cause  and  effect.     Mature  is 
always  "  becoming ; "  it  is  never  for  two  successive  moments  in  the 
same  condition ;    everything  in  it  acts  only  as  it  is  acted  on,  and  in 
necessity  not  in  freedom. 

"  It  must  go  on  creating,  changing, 
Through  endless  shapes  forever  ranging, 
And  rest  we  only  seem  to  see." 


410  THE   PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

This  continued  transition  in  the  necessary  and  uniform  sequences  of 
cause  and  effect  is  called  the  course  of  nature. 

All  personal  beings  are  supernatural.  By  virtue  of  their  personal 
attributes  they  are  above  the  uniform  course  of  nature,  and  act  in  free- 
dom, not  in  necessity. 

Man,  however,  is  implicated  in  nature.  He  is,  indeed,  an  agent- 
cause.  But  so  also  is  a  molecule  or  atom  if  it  is  endowed  with  the 
power  of  attraction  and  repulsion  or  any  other  inherent  power.  The 
molecule  reveals  its  po\ver  only  as  it  comes  into  relation  to  some  other 
molecule.  So  man,  though  endowed  with  personal  attributes,  reveals 
them  to  himself  and  others  only  as  he  comes  into  relation  to  nature, 
which  is  the  occasion  of  his  exerting  his  energies  and  becoming  con- 
scious of  himself  as  rational  and  free.  But  this  does  not  imply  that 
man's  mind  is  a  tabula  rasa,  a  blank  tablet  passively  receptive  of  what- 
ever sensuous  impressions  may  be  imprinted  on  it  from  without ;  nor 
does  it  imply  that  the  molecule  and  the  human  mind  are  the  same  in 
kind. 

What  man  is,  is  not  determined  by  that  which  excites  him  to 
action,  but  by  the  powers  which  he  exercises  and  reveals  when  he  acts. 
Power  is  common  both  to  personal  and  impersonal  beings ;  and  contact 
with  objects  in  nature  is  the  occasion  on  which  the  power  both  of  man 
and  the  impersonal  thing  are  brought  into  action.  But  in  the  exercise  of 
their  powers  the  one  reveals  its  impersonality,  the  other  its  personality. 
Man  acts  in  the  consciousness  of  himself  as  ever  one  and  the  same ;  by 
virtue  of  his  rationality  and  his  consequent  susceptibility  to  rational  mo- 
tives he  is  able  to  direct  his  energies  to  any  end  which  he  has  freely  cho- 
sen and  to  call  them  into  action  at  will.  Man's  body  is  itself  a  part  of 
nature.  Muscular  contractility  and  other  organic  energies  are  forces 
of  nature.  But  the  man  exerts  these  forces  and  directs  them  to  his 
own  ends,  and  through  them — hand  guided  by  mind — is  able  to  use 
other  forces  of  nature  and  compel  them  to  effect  what  he  has  willed 
and  what  nature  without  his  intervention  would  never  have  effected. 
These  powers  in  their  very  essence  imply  that  man  is  distinct  from 
nature  and  above  it.  In  the  very  act  of  knowing  nature  and  acting 
on  it  he  distinguishes  himself  from  nature,  knows  himself  above  it,  and 
finds  in  it  both  the  sphere  of  his  rational  intelligence  and  free  activity 
and  the  resources  and  powers  which  he  controls  to  his  own  service. 
He  is  a  supernatural  being.  Lotze  says :  "  The  complete  survey 
of  the  inward  experience  is  the  only  way  to  ascertain  with  what 
essential  qualities  the  soul  fills  out  its  own  indivisible  unity,  w:hich 
holds  the  manifold  of  its  inner  life  together  and  develops  the  many- 
colored  manifoldness  of  its  characteristics.  We  have  no  other  insight 
into  the  essence  of  the  soul  except  what  the  observed  acts  of  our  own 


P.RSOKAUTT. 

consciousness  guarantee ;  we  know  what  the  soul  i 
to  know,  to  feel  and  to  do."* 

The  Duke  of  Argyll  suggests  that  man  cannot  know  the  supernatural 
till  he  has  attained  an  exhaustive  knowledge  of  the  natural.  If  this  is 
so  he  can  never  know  the  supernatural.  Conscious  individuality  and 
identity,  conscious  reason  and  free-will  are  of  the  essence  of  personality. 
If  a  man  does  not  know  these  in  his  consciousness  of  himself  he  can 
never  know  them.  And  personality  in  its  essential  significance  is  super- 
natural. This  very  suggestion  of  searching  throughout  nature  for  the 
supernatural  presupposes  knowledge  of  the  supernatural. 

It  must  be  noted  that  the  word  nature  is  often  used  with  other  mean- 
ings. It  is  used  to  denote  the  constitution  of  anything,  or  its  essential 
qualities ;  we  speak  of  the  nature  of  an  alkali  or  of  electricity,  the 
nature  of  law,  of  a  circle,  of  syllogistic  reasoning,  or  of  God.  Super- 
natural is  also  used  to  denote  the  miraculous,  the  exertion  on  nature  of 
a  power  not  only  supernatural  but  also  superhuman.  Nature  is  also 
used  to  denote  the  finite  universe,  including  man ;  and  the  supernatural 
is  identified  with  the  absolute  and  predicated  only  of  it.  Then  the  dif- 
ference between  the  supernatural  and  the  natural  becomes  precisely  the 
difference  between  the  absolute  and  the  finite.  Then  it  becomes  impos- 
sible to  have  any  positive  knowledge  of  the  supernatural,  or  of  the 
absolute  as  a  supernatural  being ;  for  if  man  does  not  know  the  super- 
natural in  knowing  himself,  he  can  never  have  any  positive  knowledge 
of  it,  nor  add  anything  positive  to  the  idea  of  the  absolute  by  affirm- 
ing that  it  is  supernatural.  Imagination  cannot  create  an  idea  the 
elements  of  which  were  never  given  in  intuition.  The  logical  result 
must  be  either  agnosticism — the  absolute  as  the  ground  of  the  universe 
is  unknowable — or  monism — the  absolute  is  identical  with  the  universe 
itself;  and,  whether  the  monism  be  materialistic  or  pantheistic,  in  either 
case  the  universe,  identified  with  the  absolute,  contains  nothing  super- 
natural. Logically  no  bridge  is  left  by  which  thought  can  pass  to  the 
knowledge  of  the  absolute  as  the  personal  God.  But  if  personality, 
as  including  reason  and  free-will,  is  in  its  essence  supernatural,  then 
we  know  the  universe  as  including  both  a  moral  system  of  persons 
under  moral  law  and  therein  supernatural,  and  a  system  of  impersonal 
nature  under  natural  law  alone  ;  and  we  may  know  the  absolute  being 
as  the  Supreme  Reason  governing  the  world  in  wisdom  and  love ;  that 
is,  we  may  know  him  as  the  personal  God  in  whose  image  as  rational, 
free  and  personal,  man  exists.  The  objection  that  this  implies  that 
man  would  be  exempt  from  the  law  of  cause  and  effect  rests  on  a  mis- 
apprehension. The  law  of  cause  and  effect  is  a  principle  of  reason  and 

*  Mikrokosmws.     Vol.  I.,  pp.  182-184. 


412  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

law  to  all  finite  beings,  and  is  not  a  mere  uniform  factual  sequence 
which  we  call  a  law  of  nature ;  and  the  free  person  is  not  exempt  from 
it,  for  he  is  the  cause  of  his  own  free  acts,  and  himself  as  finite  derives 
his  being  from  God  and  depends  on  him  for  his  existence.  But  his 
action  is  free  and  is  not  in  the  necessary  sequences  which  constitute  the 
course  of  nature. 

IV.  A  person,  considered  as  distinguished  from  matter  or  as  hyper- 
material,  is  called  Spirit. 

Our  knowledge  of  person  as  already  defined  is  clear  and  positive. 
All  its  elements  are  known  within  our  own  consciousness.  But  when 
we  designate  a  person  as  a  spirit  in  distinction  from  matter,  the  propo- 
sition is  liable  to  be  misunderstood. 

On  the  one  hand,  theology  does  not  deny  of  the  finite  spirit  all  re- 
lations to  space.  The  relations  of  body,  of  the  finite  spirit,  and  of  God 
to  space,  were  respectively  designated  in  the  older  theology  by  the 
Latin  adverbs,  eircumscriptive,  definitive  and  repletive*  By  these  terms, 
which  Turretin  already  perceived  to  be  inadequate,  theology  denied  of 
the  finite  spirit  solidity  and  divisibility,  which  are  characteristic  of 
bodies,  and  immensity  or  omnipresence  which  is  predicable  only  of 
God,  and  affirmed  of  it  a  definite  form  and  position  in  space.  So  Ten- 
nyson :  * 

"  Eternal  form  shall  still  divide 
The  eternal  soul  from  all  beside." 

It  is  not  essential  to  spirit  that  it  exist  and  act  separate  from 
matter.  All  that  is  essential  is  that  the  properties  and  powers  peculiar 
to  a  person  are  not  properties  and  powers  of  matter ;  they  transcend 
matter  and  its  forces  and  cannot  be  accounted  for  by  them.  It  is  there- 
fore possible  that  spirit  acts  in  and  through  a  material  organization ; 
and  if  all  finite  persons  thus  act  it  does  not  prove  that  they  are  not 
spirit.  Even  God  expresses  his  thought  and  reveals  his  glory  through 
nature.  Immanent  in  the  universe  his  power,  wisdom  and  love  are 
continuously  revealed  in  it.  In  the  loom  of  time  he  weaves  the  gar- 
ment by  which  we  see  him.  Spirit  is  the  source  of  power  and  of  the 
wisdom  and  love  which  direct  its  energies.  And  it  is  not  inconceiv- 
able that  the  finite  spirit,  as  a  subcreative  centre  of  reason  and  free 
power,  may  wreave  for  itself  a  material  vesture,  of  ethereal  texture  and 
from  fitly  elaborated  matter,  through  which  it  acts  and  by  which 
it  is  revealed.  Any  power  which  acts  can  cause  only  effects, 
which  as  effects  are  conditioned  in  space,  or  time,  or  consciousness, 
or  quantity,  or  dependence.  Not  otherwise  can  it  reveal  itself. 

*  Turretin  :  Institutio  Theologies  Elencticae ;  Loc.  III.,  Quasi,  be. 


PERSONALITY.  413 

Hence  nature  is  always  the  symbol  and  revealer  of  spirit.  As  already 
shown,  nature  is  the  sphere  in  which  the  human  reason  and  will  act, 
and  furnishes  resources  and  agencies  for  their  action.  And  in  it  God, 
always  immanent,  acts  revealing  his  glory.  Matter  is  not  contradic- 
tory to  spirit,  but  the  object  and  sphere,  the  organ  and  the  instrument 
of  its  action.  The  impa&sable  chasm  between  dead  matter  and  spirit, 
the  irreconcilable  antagonism  between  them,  can  no  longer  be  found. 

On  the  other  hand  the  word  matter  does  not  have  a  fixed  and  definite 
meaning.  This  is  partly  because  the  word  is  used  indefinitely ;  partly 
because  those  who  define  it  do  not  agree  in  their  definitions ;  and  still 
more  because  an  exact  and  complete  definition  must  determinately 
answer  questions,  both  empirical  and  metaphysical,  which  man  has  not 
at  present  the  means  of  deciding. 

It  is  idle  to  use  the  arguments  against  materialism  founded  on 
what  Lange  calls,  "  The  old  notion  of  matter  as  a  dead,  stark  and  pas- 
sive substance."  Matter  is  now  regarded  as  dynamic  rather  than  pas- 
sive ;  and  the  materialism  of  the  present  day  is  founded  on  the  doctrine 
of  the  persistence  of  force.  Matter  as  conceived  by  the  current  material- 
ism is  that  which  occupies  space  and  is  contained  in  it  and  which  thus 
has  the  properties  of  solidity,  extension,  form  and  position;  but  it 
is  always  in  motion ;  rest  is  relative  only  to  the  particular  system  to 
which  the  apparently  resting  body  belongs.  Force  is  the  cause  of 
motion ;  or,  if  the  phrase  is  preferred,  it  is  that  which  is  manifested 
in  motion ;  all  force  is  measurable  by  motion,  the  mass  and  velocity 
being  the  factors.  The  quantity  of  force,  potential  and  kinetic,  is 
always  the  same.  By  the  impact  of  moving  bodies  force  can  be  commu- 
nicated and  its  manifestation  transformed  into  a  new  mode  of  motion ; 
but  no  force  can  be  added  to  or  subtracted  from  the  existing  amount. 
The  inertia  of  matter  remains  in  the  fact,  as  stated  by  Grove,  "  that  a 
force  cannot  originate  otherwise  than  by  devolution  from  some  pre- 
existing force  or  forces."*  Such  is  matter  objectively  considered  as  the 
current  materialism  conceives  it. 

Matter  subjectively  considered  is  that  which  is  perceptible  by  man's 
senses ;  or  is  of  such  a  nature  as  to  be  conceivably  perceptible  by 
more  acute  and  powerful  senses  of  the  same  kind.  The  materialism 
of  the  present  day  is  the  affirmation  that  matter  and  force  as  above 
defined  are  all  the  reality  of  which  it  is  possible  for  man  to  have  know- 
ledge ;  that  they  constitute  the  universe  and  account  for  all  its  changes ; 
that  what  we  call  mind  and  mental  phenomena  are  no  exception ;  and 
that  there  is  a  complete  correlation  and  inter-convertibility  of  mental 
phenomena  and  the  physical  processes  going  on  in  the  brain. 

*  Correlation  of  Physical  Forces :  p.  19. 


414  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

In  view  of  the  current  dynamic  conception  of  physical  phenomena, 
this  materialistic  monism  is  evidently  distinguishable  from  materialism 
in  some  of  its  previous  historical  forms.  But  it  is  the  same  in  its 
practical  issue.  In  contradiction  to  this  materialistic  monism  I  affirm 
that  the  activities  of  personality,  certainly  known  to  us  as  facts,  reveal 
an  agent  or  power  other  than  and  different  from  matter  and  the 
energy  which  is  manifested  in  motion  and  measured  by  it.  A  person, 
considered  as  thus  distinguished  from  matter  and  its  motor-energy,  is 
called  spirit. 

I  76.    Man  is  a  Personal  Being. 

Man  knows  himself  to  be  a  person,  endowed  wifh  rational  free-will 
and  all  the  essential  attributes  of  personality,  and,  as  such,  a  subject 
of  moral  obligation  and  capable  of  moral  conduct  and  character. 
Man  knows  this  with  the  highest  certainty  ;  on  the  knowledge  of  this 
all  other  knowledge  depends  for  its  reality,  its  continuity,  and  its 
unity. 

The  fact  of  man's  personality  has  been  established  in  the  preced- 
ing chapters,  and  needs  no  further  discussion. 

In  his  personality  every  man  is  individual  and  alone;  others  can 
approach  the  barriers  of  this  solitude  and  send  in  intelligence,  in- 
fluence, or  sympathy ;  but  no  man  can  scale  the  barriers  into  the  per- 
sonality of  another  to  think,  or  feel,  or  determine,  or  act  for  him,  to 
take  his  responsibility,  or  to  participate  in  his  consciousness.  There  is 
much  in  every  one's  consciousness  which,  even  without  any  purpose 
or  effort  to  conceal  it,  is  hidden  from  those  most  intimate  with  him. 

"  Yes ;  in  the  sea  of  life  enisled, 
With  echoing  straits  between  us  thrown, 
Dotting  the  shoreless  watery  wild 
We  mortal  millions  live  alone. 
The  islands  feel  the  enclasping  flow, 
And  then  their  endless  bounds  they  know." 

And  to  the  same  purport  is  the  Hebrew  proverb :  "  If  thou  be  wise 
thou  shalt  be  wise  for  thyself;  but  if  thou  scornest  thou  alone  shalt 
bear  it." 

Whatever  difficulties  may  be  involved  in  the  assertion  that  man  is 
spirit,  the  fact  of  his  personality  stands  out  in  clear,  definite  and  certain 
knowledge.  And  because  he  is  a  person  he  is  a  moral  agent  and  a 
supernatural  being. 

\  77.    Man  is  Spirit. 

Though  man  in  his  physical  constitution  is  implicated  in  nature,  yet 
in  his  personality  he  is  spirit,  supernatural  and  hypermaterial. 

If  materialism  is  to  stand  it  must  account  for  and  explain  all  the 


PERSONALITY.  415 

facts,  both  of  personality  and  of  the  physical  universe,  by  matter  and 
its  motor-force  alone ;  failing  to  do  this  it  is  discredited  as  a  theory  of 
the  universe.  We  must  distinguish  between  accounting  for  and  ex- 
plaining by  empirical  science  and  by  philosophy.  A  reality  is  ex- 
plained and  accounted  for  empirically  when  it  is  classified  by  resem- 
blance and  co-ordinated  in  a  uniform  sequence.  Factual  realities  thus 
cognized  hi  empirical  science  are  accounted  for  and  explained  philo- 
sophically when  they  are  interpreted  and  vindicated  to  the  Reason  by 
declaring  the  rational  thought  which  they  express,  the  rational  law  to 
which  they  conform,  and  the  rational  ideals  and  ends  which  they  tend 
to  realize.  I  propose  to  prove  that  the  facts  of  personality  and  of  the 
physical  universe  cannot  be  accounted  for  or  explained  either  empiri- 
cally or  philosophically  by  matter  and  its  motor-force. 

I.  The  existence  of  spirit  is  necessary  to  account  for  and  explain 
the  facts  of  personality.  Matter  and  motor-force  cannot  account  for 
and  explain  them. 

1.  The  properties  and  powers  of  personal  beings  are  different  from 
the  properties  and  powers  of  matter ;  therefore  there  must  be  a  spiritual 
agent  or  cause  manifesting  itself  in  personality,  distinct  and  different 
from  matter  and  the  force  which  manifests  itself  in  motion.     Intuitions 
of  self-consciousness  and  of  reason,  free  choice,  love,  are  not  identical 
with  motion  nor  with  any  change  of  matter  which  is  resolvable  into 
motion.     Spirit  is  distinguished  from  matter  by  peculiar  essential  pro- 
perties.    We  cannot  distinguish  substances  by  going  behind  the  proper- 
ties.    Substance  has  no  meaning  divested  of  the  properties  in  which  it 
is  manifested.     We  know  substance  only  as  a  being  persistent  in  cer- 
tain properties  or  powers.     We  have  then  the  same  kind  of  reason 
for  supposing  the  being  or  agent  revealed  in  personal  properties  and 
acts  to  be  a  kind  of  agent  different  and  distinct  from  matter,  which 
reveals  itself  in  force  causing  or  arresting  motion,  as  we  have  for  sup- 
posing that  oxygen  is  a  different  kind  of  being  or  agent  from  hydrogen. 
And   the   distinction   and  difference  are  more  complete  because  the 
activities  of  oxygen  and  hydrogen  are  ultimately  brought  into  the  same 

as  modes  of  motion,  while  the  activities  of  personality  cannot  be 
identified  with  motion,  and  the  personal  agent  is  thus  distinct  and  dif- 
ferent from  all  agents  whose  activities  are  solely  modes  of  motion. 
Hence,,  as  Dr.  Carpenter  says  of  spirit  and  matter,  "  the  essential  nature 
of  these  two  entities  is  such  that  no  relation  of  identity  can  exist  be- 
tween them."* 

2.  The  supposition   of   the    existence   of   spirit    as  the    cause    or 
agent  manifested  in  the  known  facts  of  personality  and  necessary  to 

*  Mind  and  Will  in  Nature  :  Contemporary  Rev.     1872. 


416  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

account  for  them,  is  entirely  accordant  with  the  methods  of  physical 
science. 

Science  recognizes  at  present  sixty-four  simple  or  elemental  bodies. 
It  assumes  that  the  atoms  of  each  of  these  have  certain  peculiar 
and  unchangeable  properties  by  which  these  elements  are  each  dis- 
tinguished from  the  others.  "  The  diversity  of  matter  results  from 
primordial  differences  perpetually  existing  in  the  very  essence  of  these 
atoms,  and  in  the  qualities  which  are  the  manifestation  of  them."* 
When  in  the  known  facts  of  personality  we  discover  properties  and 
activities  differing  from  those  of  each  of  these  elements  and  of  all  mat- 
ter, especially  in  the  fact  that  they  are  not  modes  of  motion,  we  do  but 
adopt  the  legitimate  and  uniform  method  of  physical  science  in  ascrib- 
ing them  to  an  agent  or  cause  distinct  and  different  from  matter  and 
its  energy.  There  is  nothing  more  difficult  or  unscientific  in  distin- 
guishing the  agent  revealed  in  these  phenomena  from  matter  than  in 
distinguishing  the  substance  revealed  in  the  phenomena  of  potassium 
from  carbon  or  iron.  We  distinguish  spirit  as  the  agent  in  personality 
from  all  bodies,  because  the  qualities  in  which  it  manifests  itself  are 
different  from  those  of  any  and  all  bodies. 

The  scientific  recognition  of  molecules,  atoms,  and. the  ether  shows 
still  more  strikingly  that  our  recognition  of  spirit  as  the  agent  mani- 
festing itself  in  the  phenomena  of  personality  is  accordant  with  the 
legitimate  and  customary  method  of  empirical  science.  In  ascertain- 
ing the  essential  reality  of  all  that  is  presented  to  the  senses,  empiri- 
cal science  goes  behind  all  which  men  commonly  have  in  mind  when 
thinking  of  matter  to  reality  entirely  imperceptible  by  the  senses.  In 
this  it  seems  to  find  a  sort  of  "  thing  in  itself,"  the  essential  but  hid- 
den reality  of  all  that  is  presented  to  sense.  As  the  essential  reality  of 
matter  it  finds  molecules  and  atoms ;  of  sound,  undulations  of  air ;  of 
heat,  light  and  electricity,  vibrations  of  an  all-pervading  ether.  In 
each  case  that  which  science  finds  as  the  essential  reality  of  matter 
and  energy  is  that  which  is  imperceptible  by  sense.  The  essential 
reality  of  the  tangible  is  the  intangible ;  of  the  audible  is  the  inaudi- 
ble ;  of  the  visible  is  the  invisible ;  of  the  divisible  is  the  indivisible ; 
of  the  perceptible  is  the  imperceptible.  Thus  underlying  or  within  the 
gross  matter  and  its  motions  which  we  perceive,  is  a  world  of  atomic, 
molecular  and  ethereal  matter  which  no  human  sense  can  grasp. 

In  this,  science  presents  to  our  thought  a  reality  of  which  we 
can  have  no  perception  and  scarcely  even  a  conception  as  matter. 
The  atom  itself,  as  some  represent  it,  is  no  longer  an  infrangible  mass 
"  in  solid  singleness,"  as  Lucretius  described  it  and  as  Newton  con- 

*  Wurtz :  The  Atomic  Theory  :  Cleminshaw's  Translation,  p.  308. 


PERSONALITY.  417 

ceived  it,  but  a  ring  like  the  smoke-rings  which  rise  from  a  locomo- 
tive or  from  the  discharge  of  a  cannon.  This  ring  moves  as  a  whole  ; 
at  the  same  time  its  minute  parts  revolve  at  right  angles  around  the 
circular  line  constituting  the  nucleus  of  the  ring  and  "  are  indissolubly 
tied  down  to  their  circular  paths,  and  can  never  quit  them ; "  "  the 
rings  can  move  and  change  their  form  without  the  connection  of  the 
constituent  parts  ever  being  broken."*  Thus  in  every  pebble,  in  every 
visible  bit  of  matter  are  millions  of  these  indissoluble  systems  of  vortex- 
atoms  as  complicated  as  the  solar  system,  in  which  each  part  revolves 
in  its  orbit.  And  since  the  vortex-atom  itself  is  inconceivably  small, 
what  are  its  parts  measuring  their  little  years  by  revolving  forever 
within  it,  atoms  of  an  atom,  atoms  to  which  the  vortex-atom  itself  is  as 
a  universe?  It  is  evident  that  these  things  are  beyond  our  power, 
not  of  perception  only,  but  also  of  conception,  and  issue  in  well  nigh 
obliterating  the  very  idea  of  the  relations  to  space  and  time,  which 
are  the  supposed  essential  characteristics  of  matter  and  motion. 

The  ether,  also,  must  be  noticed.  It  is  "  a  medium  which  fills  the 
universe  and  penetrates  all  bodies."  Science,  does  not  profess  to  decide 
whether  it  is  homogeneous  and  continuous,  or  is  formed  of  atoms  of  a 
second  order,  which  if  immensely  accumulated  would  be  ponderable. 
Whatever  it  may  be,  the  attempt  to  conceive  it  confounds  all  our  habit- 
ual ideas  of  solid  matter. 

Physical  science  thus  assumes  a  world  utterly  imperceptible  and  in- 
conceivable as  the  essential  reality  of  matter,  as  the  real  agent  or  cause 
manifesting  itself  in  matter  and  motion  as  wre  perceive  them.  It  ac- 
counts for  masses  of  matter,  which  the  senses  perceive,  by  imperceptible 
atoms  and  molecules.  It  accounts  for  the  most  energetic  forces  that 
reveal  themselves  in  their  effects,  as  vibrations  of  ether  which  sense 
cannot  perceive.  It  supposes  a  primitive  fluid  beneath  the  atoms 
themselves.  "According  to  Thomson,  though  the  primitive  fluid  is  the 
only  true  matter,  yet  that  which  we  call  matter  is  not  the  primitive 
fluid  itself,  but  a  mode  of  motion  of  that  primitive  fluid.  It  is  the 
mode  of  motion  which  constitutes  the  vortex-rings,  and  which  furnishes 
us  with  examples  of  that  permanence  and  continuity  of  existence  which 
we  are  accustomed  to  attribute  to  matter  itself.  The  primitive  fluid, 
the  only  true  matter,  entirely  eludes  our  perceptions  when  it  is  not 
endued  with  the  mode  of  motion  which  converts  certain  portions  of  it 
into  vortex-rings,  and  thus  renders  it  molecular."f 

It  must  also  be  observed  that  energy  is  the  greatest  at  the  farthest 
remove  from  gross  matter ;  the  more  tenuous  the  matter  the  greater  the 


*  Wurtz :  The  Atomic  Theory,  p.  327. 

f  Clerk-Maxwell :  Encyc.  Brit.    9th  ed.,  Atom.,  Vol.  III.,  p.  45. 

27 


418  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

energy.  I  need  only  name  heat,  light  and  electricity.  And  if  gravi- 
tation is,  like  those  forces,  accounted  for  by  means  of  stress  in  an  in- 
tervening medium,  "  the  state  of  stress  which  we  must  suppose  to  exist 
in  the  invisible  medium  is  three  thousand  times  greater  than  that  which 
the  strongest  steel  could  support."* 

It  is  therefore  in  entire  accord  with  the  methods  of  empirical  science 
to  suppose  spirit  to  be  the  essential  reality,  the  real  agent  or  cause 
manifesting  itself  in  the  facts  of  personality.  We  only  add  an  agent 
that  no  sense  can  perceive,  still  further  removed  from  gross  matter  than 
the  atoms  and  the  ether  and  with  corresponding  increase  of  active 
power.  And  as  scientists  are  beginning  to  assume  the  reality  of  gross 
matter  to  be  in  a  primitive  fluid  as  the  prius  of  the  atoms  themselves 
and  constituting  the  atomic  vortex-rings  by  its  motion,  it  will  not  be 
surprising  if  it  be  found  that  all  power  and  all  material  existence  are 
accounted  for  ultimately  only  as  manifesting  the  power  of  spirit. 

3.  I  must  add  that  we  have  more  evidence  of  the  existence  of  spirit 
than  of  atoms,  molecules  and  ether.     The  assumed  existence  of  the 
latter  is  confessedly  hypothesis  only,  a  convenient  working  hypothesis 
for  scientific  investigation ;  but  wThile  the  hypothesis  of  the  existence  of 
spirit  accounts  and  alone  accounts  for  all  the  facts  of  personality,  we 
have  also  knowledge  of  ourselves  as  persons  in  our  own  self-conscious- 
ness.    So  Mr.  Huxley  says :  "  The  materialistic  position  that  there  is 
nothing  in  the  world  but  matter,  force  and  necessity  is  as  utterly  de- 
void of  justification  as  the  most  baseless  of  theological  dogmas."f 

4.  The  supposition  of  a  spirit  manifested  in  the  facts  of  personality 
and  accounting  for  them  is  in  the  direction  of  the  tendency  of  modern 
science  to  a  dynamic  conception  of  the  universe.  It  has  often  been  pointed 
out  that  matter  can  be  resolved  into  force,  but  that  force  cannot  be 
resolved  into  matter.     Theories  resolving  matter  in  different  ways  into 
force  have  been  from  time  to  time  proposed.     To  this  conception  recent 
science  shows  a  marked  tendency.     Energy  has  become  the  prominent 
topic  of  scientific  discussion  and  investigation.     Dynamids  are  pro- 
posed instead  of  atoms.     The  absolute  being,  the  Unknowable,  the 
Ultimate  Keality  in  which  mind  and  matter,  subject  and  object  are 
united,  is  called  by  Spencer  a  Power.     It  is  entirely  in  the  line  of  this 
tendency  of  science  to  suppose  that  it  is  spirit  which  manifests  itself  in 
the  facts  of  personality,  and  that  Energizing  Reason  is  the  Absolute 
Power  revealed  in  the  universe. 

In  following  this  dynamic  tendency  science  finds  itself  in  inextrica- 
ble difficulties.  It  passes  beneath  perceptible  matter  to  its  essential 

*  Clerk-Maxwell :  Encyc.  Brit.    9th  ed.,  Attraction,  Vol.  III.,  p.  64. 
f  Lay  Sermons :  p.  144. 


PERSONALITY.  419 

reality  which  it  supposes  itself  to  find  in  the  ether  and  various  orders 
of  atoms.  But  ether  discloses  contradictory  properties;  it  breaks 
down,  as  skeptics  say  the  reason  does,  in  irreconcilable  antinomies.  It 
is  supposed  to  be  exceedingly  rare.  Grove  tells  us  that  the  particles  of 
water  are  estimated  to  be  relatively  to  their  size  as  far  apart  as  a  hun- 
dred men  would  be  if  equally  distributed  over  the  surface  of  England. 
AVhen  the  water  is  expanded  into  steam  the  distance  is  increased  more 
than  forty  times ;  and  by  increasing  the  temperature  the  distance  is 
increased  much  more.*  The  relative  distance  of  the  particles  of  ether 
must  be  immensely  greater.  But  he  says,  no  degree  of  rarefaction  of 
a  gas,  "  by  heat,  or  the  air-pump,  or  both,  makes  the  slightest  change 
in  the  apparent  continuity  of  matter,"  under  any  experiment.  Rare 
as  ether  is  we  have  seen  that  it  sustains  a  stress  or  strain  three  thousand 
times  greater  than  the  best  steel  can  sustain ;  as  Young  says,  it  "  is  not 
only  highly  elastic,  but  absolutely  solid ; "  as  Jevons  says,  "  it  is  im- 
mensely harder  and  more  elastic  than  adamant."  Sir  John  Herschel 
estimated  the  amount  of  force  exerted  by  the  ether  to  be  seventeen 
trillions  f  of  pounds  to  the  square  inch.  Yet  its  resistance  to  the 
motion  of  the  planets  is  too  minute  to  be  appreciated ;  J  and  we  live 
and  move  in  it  without  perceiving  it.  It  is  also  inconceivably  energetic. 
It  has  been  calculated  that  in  the  red  ray  four  hundred  and  seventy- 
four  trillions,  in  the  middle  green  six  hundred  trillions,  and  in  the  violet 
ray  six  hundred  and  ninety-nine  trillions  §  of  vibrations  of  the  ether 
strike  on  the  retina  of  the  eye  in  a  second.  Such  an  ether  is  entirely 
inconceivable.  It  is  objected  to  the  supposition  of  spirit  that  it  is  con- 
trary to  our  experience.  Certainly  it  is  not  more  so  than  is  the  ether. 
Mr.  Spencer  also  notices  the  fact  that  a  "  rhythmically  moving  mole- 
cule" is  "  mental  in  a  threefold  sense ;"  that  is,  separated  from  observed 
reality  by  a  threefold  remove ;  "  so  that  the  unit  out  of  which  we  build 
our  interpretation  of  material  phenomena  is  triply  ideal."  ||  Thus 
physical  science,  crowded  by  its  own  speculations  to  the  utmost  verge 
of  solid  matter,  clings  to  it  with  difficulty,  and  is  half  ready  to  let  go 
its  hold  and  to  rest  only  on  energy  potential  and  kinetic.  This  would 
be  a  long  step  towards  idealism.  For,  as  Dr.  Carpenter,  the  physiolo- 
gist, says,  "  While  between  matter  and  mind  it  is  utterly  vain  to  estab- 
lish a  relation  of  identity  or  analogy,  a  very  close  relation  may  be 
shown  to  exist  between  mind  and  force."  It  is  impossible  by  any  effort 
for  the  human  mind  to  think  of  energy  exerted  in  causing  motion  or 
other  change,  except  as  some  being  or  agent  exerts  it.  If  there  is 
motion,  there  must  be  something  that  is  moved  and  something  that 

*  Correlation  of  Forces,  V.,  Light,  p.  128.  f  17,000,000,000,000. 

J  Prof.  Jevons  :  Principles  of  Science.    Chap,  xxiii.,  pp.  514,  516,  558. 
$  699,000,000,000,000.  |j  Psychology.    Vol.  I.,  p.  625. 


420  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

moves  it.  If  matter  itself  is  but  the  equilibrium  of  opposing  forces 
occupying  a  portion  of  space,  if  in  its  various  changes  these  forces  are 
liberated  and  brought  into  equilibrium  with  other  forces,  then  the  dis- 
embodied energy  must  either  be  exerted  by  a  spirit,  or  it  must  itself  be 
hypostasized  as  an  entity  persisting  in  identity.  But  such  an  hypos, 
tasized  force  involves  all  the  difficulties  supposed  to  be  in  the  idea  of 
spirit.  It  would  need  only  the  addition  of  intelligence  or  the  power  of 
self-direction,  and  it  would  be  spirit. 

The  supposition  of  the  real  existence  both  of  body  and  finite  spirit,  and 
of  absolute  and  eternal  power  as  Energizing  Keason,  enables  us  to  re- 
tain both  matter  and  spirit,  both  nature  and  the  supernatural,  both  the 
seen  and  the  unseen  world ;  and  we  are  extricated  from  the  difficulties 
inseparable  from  the  hypothesis  that  all  that  exists  is  the  manifestation 
of  matter  and  force  alone.  If  now  we  be  compelled  to  admit  that 
matter  as  perceived  by  human  senses  is  phenomenon  only  and  that  its 
essential  reality  is  beyond  the  reach  of  sense,  and  if  the  idea  of  matter 
even  in  its  extra-sensible  forms  slips  from  us  and  the  idea  of  energy 
alone  is  left,  the  energy  is  no  longer  an  action  without  an  agent,  but  is 
the  activity  of  an  energizing  reason  continually  and  progressively  real- 
izing its  eternal  ideals  within  the  limitations  and  in  the  forms  of  space 
and  time.  This  is  analogous  to  the  conclusion  of  the  Spencerian  phil- 
osophy, while  free  from  difficulties  inseparable  from  the  latter,  "  that 
the  term  matter  does  not  stand  for  any  real  existence,  but  only  for  one 
of  the  modes  in  which  an  Inscrutable  Existence  reveals  itself  to  us 
within  the  limits  of  our  terrestrial  experience."* 

II.  The  existence  of  some  cause  other  than  matter  and  force  is  neces- 
sary to  account  for  and  explain  the  physical  universe  itself;  it  cannot 
be  accounted  for  and  explained  as  mechanism.  No  physical  cause  or 
law  as  yet  discovered  by  physical  science  is  adequate  to  account  for  and 
explain  it. 

The  laws  of  mechanism  declare  what  is  the  invariable  action  of 
motor-force  on  matter;  when  fully  known  they  may  be  formulated 
mathematically.  The  theory  that  the  universe  is  mechanism  presup- 
poses only  matter  and  the  force  which  is  manifested  in  motion,  molar 
or  molecular.  All  the  activity  in  the  universe  consists  in  the  rearrange- 
ment or  distribution  of  matter  and  force  according  to  the  laws  of 
mechanics.  In  its  more  common  form  it  supposes  the  force  to  be  in- 
herent in  matter  and  always  present  either  as  potential  or  energetic. 
In  its  second  and  strictest  form  it  supposes  gravitation  and  all  the  forces 
of  nature  to  result  from  the  impact  of  moving  bodies. 

The  very  ideas  of  matter  and  force  suggest  questions  and  difficulties 

*  J.  Fiske :  Cosmic  Phil.    Vol.  II.,  p.  445. 


PERSONALITY.  421 

which  carry  us  beyond  mechanism.  As  Du  Bois-Reymond  says :  "  In 
the  ideas  of  matter  and  force  we  see  returning  the  same  dualism  which 
expresses  itself  in  God  and  the  world,  soul  and  body."* 

The  law  of  the  Persistence  of  Force  declares  the  unity  and  continuity 
of  force.  The  discovery  of  this  law  was  supposed  by  many  to  establish 
beyond  all  further  question  the  theory  that  the  universe  is  a  machine 
and  all  its  phenomena  explicable  by  the  principles  and  laws  of  me- 
chanism. But  it  is  evident  that  this  law  and  all  theories  of  mechanism 
resting  on  it,  not  only  fail  to  explain  and  account  for  the  facts  of  per- 
sonality, but  equally  for  the  known  action  of  physical  force. 

Gravitation  itself  cannot  be  accounted  for  by  this  law.  It  is  a  fact 
that  energy  is  communicated  from  the  sun  to  the  earth.  A  fiery 
cyclone  in  the  sun  transmits  energy  to  the  earth  which  moves  a  mag- 
netic needle.  The  energy  of  the  sun  sustains  all  organic  life.  But 
the  gravitation  of  the  earth  to  the  sun  cannot  be  accounted  for  or  ex- 
plained by  the  law  of  the  persistence  of  force. 

We  may  first  assume  the  common  explanation  that  gravitation  is 
an  inherent  property  of  matter,  that  the  energy  is  exerted  by  the 
matter  itself. 

The  first  difficulty  then  is  that  we  have  action  at  a  distance.  This 
is  contrary  to  the  common  conviction  that  a  body  cannot  act  where  it 
is  not ;  it  implies  a  disembodied  force  or  motion  passing  through  space ; 
it  involves  every  difficulty  supposed  to  be  implied  in  a  disembodied 
spirit,  and  the  additional  difficulty  of  supposing  an  energy  to  exist 
where  no  being  is  present  to  exert  it,  or  a  motion  where  no  being  ia 
present  to  move. 

A  second  difficulty,  if  attraction  is  an  essential  property  of  matter,  is 
that  the  energy  is  continually  exerted  without  being  expended  and 
thus  must  continually  increase  the  amount  of  energy  in  the  universe. 
A  moving  body  transmits  energy  to  the  body  against  which  it  strikes, 
and  loses  the  energy  which  it  transmits.  But  if  attraction  is  an  essen- 
tial property  of  the  sun,  there  is  no  transfer  of  energy  from  the  sun 
to  the  planets.  The  sun  is  continually  emitting  energy  into  an  im- 
measurable sphere,  but  it  loses  no  energy ;  its  power  of  attraction  is 
not  restored  to  it  by  impact  from  other  bodies ;  it  is  an  ever  full  and 
inexhaustible  fountain  from  which  the  energy  of  attraction  streams 
continuously  forever.  This  conception  of  gravitation  is  therefore  en- 
tirely incompatible  with  the  law  of  the  persistence  of  force.  It  implies 
that  the  amount  of  energy  in  the  universe  is  continually  increased. 
Every  body  in  the  universe  by  its  power  of  attraction  is  continuously 
and  inexhaustibly  giving  out  energy. 

*  Untersuchungen  uber  thierische  Electricitat,  S.  40. 


422  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

Another  difficulty  is  that  the  force  seems  to  act  instantaneously; 
every  body  in  the  universe  takes  cognizance  of  the  change  of  position 
of  every  other  body  and  moves  accordingly.  Another  difficulty  is 
that  the  force  is  not  obstructed  by  any  intervening  body,  but  all  bodies 
are  transparent  to  it. 

If  to  escape  these  difficulties  we  change  our  theory  and  assume 
that  gravitation  is  accounted  for  by  molecular  action  and  so  is  cor- 
related with  all  energy,  the  difficulties  remain.  Hypotheses  account- 
ing for  gravitation  in  this  way  are  at  present  little  more  than  fancies, 
guesses  or  suggestions ;  but  as  the  best  work  of  keen,  scientific  minds, 
they  strikingly  exemplify  the  truth  of  my  proposition. 

If  the  ether  is  supposed  to  be  continuous,  filling  all  space,  the  old 
question  of  the  plenum  and  the  vacuum  returns.  If  matter  is  con- 
tinuous, filling  all  space,  how  is  motion  possible  ?  And  if  possibility 
of  motion  is  still  affirmed,  have  we  not  essentially  changed  the  very 
idea  of  matter  as  solid  or  occupying  space  ? 

If,  however,  the  ether  is  discontinuous,  composed  of  atoms  of  a  second 
order  finer  than  those  of  gross  matter,  we  are  no  nearer  a  satisfactory 
explanation. 

Suppose,  for  example,  that  the  energy  of  gravitation  is  transmitted 
through  space  by  the  impact  of  the  atoms  of  the  ether ;  we  do  not 
escape  the  necessity  of  action  at  a  distance ;  for,  as  Clerk-Maxwell  says, 
"  we  have  no  evidence  that  real  contact  ever  takes  place  between  two 
bodies  ....  and  all  that  we  have  done  is  to  substitute  for  a  single 
action  at  a  great  distance  a  series  of  actions  at  smaller  distances  be- 
tween the  parts  of  a  medium  ;  so  that  we  cannot  even  thus  get  rid  of 
action  at  a  distance."  Also,  according  to  this  second  form  of  the  theory 
of  the  universe  as  mechanism,  potential  force  could  no  longer  be  re- 
cognized ;  for  force  would  exist,  not  as  inherent  in  bodies,  but  only  as 
energizing  in  motion  and  communicated  in  the  impact  of  bodies. 

Nor  do  we  escape  the  difficulties  as  to  the  expenditure  and  accumu- 
lation of  -force.  Of  the  hypothesis  accounting  for  gravitation  by  mole- 
cular action,  the  one  most  completely  worked  out  appears  to  be  that 
of  Le  Sage.  He  supposes  corpuscles,  so  small  that  they  very  rarely 
collide  with  one  another,  streaming  in  all  directions  into  our  universe 
from  beyond  its  limits.  A  body  alone  in  free  space  would  be  so  equally 
bombarded  on  all  sides  by  these  corpuscles  that  it  would  not  be  moved. 
But  when  two  bodies  confront  each  other,  the  confronting  sides  will 
be  partially  screened  from  the  bombardment,  and  the  excess  of 
corpuscles  impinging  on  the  outer  sides  drive  the  bodies  towards 
each  other.  It  has  been  calculated  that  the  rate  at  which  energy 
would  be  thus  spent  in  order  to  maintain  the  gravitating  property  of  a 
single  pound,  would  be  at  least  millions  of  millions  of  foot-pounds  in  a 


PERSONALITY.  423 

second.  A  large  part  of  this  immense  amount  of  energy  which  the 
corpuscles  bring  with  them  they  do  not  carry  away.  It  is  not  transformed 
into  heat ;  for  "  if  any  appreciable  fraction  of  this  energy  is  commu- 
nicated to  the  body  in  the  form  of  heat,  the  amount  of  heat  so  gene- 
rated would  in  a  few  seconds  raise  it,  and  in  like  manner  the  whole 
material  universe,  to  a  white  heat."  What  becomes  of  it  remains  un- 
accounted for.  It  must  either  be  annihilated  or  its  continuous  influx 
must  increase  the  amount  of  energy  in  the  universe.  Clerk-Maxwell, 
from  whom  I  take  the  account  of  Le  Sage's  hypothesis,  has  examined 
it  and  two  other  molecular  theories  of  gravitation,  and  finds  it  im- 
possible by  any  one  of  them  to  account  for  gravitation  in  accordance 
with  the  law  of  the  persistence  of  force. 

Similar  difficulties  are  involved  in  all  attempts  to  explain,  in  ac- 
cordance with  this  law,  cohesive  attraction  and  chemical  affinity, 
either  as  properties  of  matter  or  as  results  of  molecular  action,  and  also 
all  interaction  of  matter,  molar  or  molecular.  The  changes  in  nature 
are  effected  by  complex  causes,  each  modifying  the  other.  They  act 
together  like  a  swarm  of  bees  building  and  filling  their  honey-comb, 
or  crowds  of  coral  zoophytes  working  together  through  many  genera- 
tions, building  a  brain-coral  or  a  Neptune's  cup.  The  several  bodies 
are  never  in  perfect  contact.  If  the  several  molecules  or  other  agents 
each  exerts  its  power  continuously,  acting  on  whatever  comes  within 
its  range,  then  there  is  continuous  expenditure  without  resupply  and 
without  exhaustion,  and  a  continuous  increase  of  the  sum  total  of  force. 
If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  force  sinks  inactive  into  potentiality  until 
the  other  agent  comes  near,  how  is  the  presence  of  the  other  agent 
signaled  across  the  intervening  space  ?  The  energy  exerted  by  a  body 
varies  with  its  varying  conditions.  Chemical  substances  in  their  nascent 
state  exhibit  powers  which  they  exert  at  no  other  time.  Some  sub- 
stances have  no  affinity  at  a  low  temperature,  but  readily  combine 
when  heated  to  certain  higher  degrees.  A  force  which  thus  depends 
on  conditions,  and  which  comes  and  goes,  cannot  be  an  inherent  pro- 
perty of  the  body.  We  should  have  to  say  that  the  body  had  this 
power  down  to  a  certain  temperature,  or  within  certain  conditions,  and 
otherwise  had  it  not ;  as  Galileo,  when  told  that  water  cannot  be  raised 
in  a  pump  above  thirty-two  feet,  replied  that  he  supposed  nature 
abhorred  a  vacuum  to  the  distance  of  thirty-two  feet  and  beyond  that 
did  not  abhor  it.  Thus  the  mechanical  theory  in  its  second  form 
fails  to  explain  the  interaction  of  bodies,  whether  molar  or  molecular, 
and  their  co-action  in  a  complex  of  causes.  It  seems  impossible  that 
an  unconscious  atom  or  mass  of  matter,  whose  force  is  inactive  in 
potentiality,  should  suddenly  emit  it  at  the  approach  of  a  body  separated 
whether  far  or  near  in  space,  and  every  moment  adjust  it  instan- 


424  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

taneously  and  with  mathematical  exactness  to  the  varying  distances 
and  conditions  of  all  the  atoms  or  masses  on  which  it  acts — the  action 
being  adjusted  not  only  to  a  single  body  and  its  conditions  but  to  a 
great  number  of  bodies,  molar  or  molecular,  changing  at  every 
moment. 

As  physical  science  pushes  its  researches  farther  and  farther  it  is 
noticeable  that  its  explanations  of  facts  solely  by  mechanism  become 
artificial,  complicated,  and  sometimes  inconceivable  and  seemingly 
contradictory.  This  of  itself  creates  a  presumption  that  the  mechan- 
ical theory  is  inadequate  and  must  give  way  to  a  scientific  exposition 
less  affecting  extreme  simplicity  as  a  theory  and  involving  less  intricacy, 
artificiality  and  difficulty  in  its  detailed  explanation  of  facts. 

III.  Scientists  themselves  have  recognized  in  various  ways  the  neces- 
sity of  some  power  other  than  matter  and  force  to  account  for  and 
explain  the  known  facts  of  personality  and  .also  of  the  physical  or 
material  world. 

This  is  involved  in  the  conclusion  to  which  Mr.  Spencer  comes : 
"  By  the  persistence  of  force  we  really  mean  the  persistence  of  some 
Power  which  transcends  our  knowledge  and  conception.  .  .  .  The 
persistence  of  Force  is  but  another  mode  of  asserting  an  Uncon- 
ditioned Reality,  without  beginning  or  end.  .  .  .  The  axiomatic  truths 
of  physical  science  unavoidably  postulate  Absolute  Being  as  their 
common  basis."*  Others,  while  denying  the  existence  of  supernatural 
and  hyper-material  spirit,  have  found  themselves  compelled  to  recognize 
spirit  or  some  force  analogous  to  it ;  as  in  Hylozoism,  or  the  doctrine 
of  the  soul  of  the  world,  or  the  world  a  living  organism ;  as  also  by 
Czolbe,  who,  in  his  "  Limits  and  Origin  of  Human  Knowledge,"  (1865), 
supposes  "  a  sort  of  world-soul  which  consists  of  sensations  that  are 
immutably  bound  up  with  the  vibrations  of  atoms,  and  that  only  con- 
dense themselves  in  the  human  organism  and  are  aggregated  into 
the  sum  of  the  life  of  the  soul."  The  same  necessity  is  exemplified 
in  the  unconscious  intelligence  of  Hartmann,  in  the  unconscious  will  of 
Schopenhauer,  and  in  Noire's  assumption  of  "  a  monadic  Nature-essence, 
endowed  with  the  attributes  of  extension  and  feeling."  Scientists  also 
find  themselves  compelled  to  recognize  a  directive  force,  as  well  as  the 
energy  which  is  manifested  in  motion.  In  explaining  certain  phe- 
nomena of  the  mixing  of  gases,  Sir  William  Thomson  and  Clerk- 
Maxwell  suppose,  as  a  concrete  representation  of  this  directive  power, 
molecular  "demons,"  having  intelligence  enough  to  open  a  door  to 
particles  approaching  it  with  velocity  above  a  certain  rate  on  one  side 
or  below  that  rate  on  the  other.  Paracelsus  supposed  an  Archeus  in 

*  First  Principles,  §  74,  pp.  255,  256. 


PERSONALITY.  425 

the  stomach  that  directed  the  process  of  digestion ;  besides  this,  Van 
Helmont  supposed  a  Pylorus  opening  and  shutting  the  pylorie  orifice. 
The  fact  that  the  most  skilled  investigators  using  the  severest  scien- 
tific methods  find  a  directive  agency  in  nature  which  they  can  best 
represent  by  recurring  to  the  mediaeval  supposition  of  an  intelligent 
agent,  a  molecular  "demon"  directing  movements  and  opening  and 
shutting  doors,  is  one  of  the  many  evidences  that  there  is  in  matter 
and  energy  a  power  other  than  matter  and  energy,  without  which 
these  observed  facts  cannot  be  explained. 

It  may  be  added  that  the  universe  is  more  closely  analogous  to  a 
living  organism  than  to  a  machine.  The  latter  is  a  completed  struc- 
ture into  which  no  new  part  or  function  can  be  admitted  without 
spoiling  the  machine.  In  a  living  organism,  on  the  contrary,  all  the 
parts  are  subordinate  to  the  whole  and  act  concurrently  and  pro- 
gressively in  the  realization  of  its  plan  or  ideal ;  and  there  is  perpetual 
transition,  perpetual  reception  and  emission  of  both  matter  and  force 
in  the  process.  If  then  either  of  these  forms  of  matter  must  be  taken 
as  the  matrix  in  which  to  mold  our  thought  of  the  cosmos,  it  must  be 
the  organism  rather  than  the  machine.  And  especially  is  this  re- 
quired* by  the  theory  of  evolution ;  for  it  presents  nature  not  as  a  rigid, 
completed,  unchangeable  machine,  but  as  material  in  the  highest  degree 
plastic,  never  fixed  in  a  completed  arrangement,  always  in  transition, 
always  receptive  and  outgoing;  and  in  fact  it  usually  describes  the 
physical  process  as  a  growth  though  it  uses  the  names  of  development 
or  evolution. 

IV.  We  are,  then,  forced  to  conclude  that  materialism  cannot  ac- 
count for  and  explain  the  facts  of  matter  and  motor-force,  and  much 
less  the  facts  of  personality.  Du  Bois-Reymond,  in  his  lecture  at 
Leipzig  "  On  the  Limits  of  the  Knowledge  of  Nature,"  reaches  the 
same  conclusion :  "  We  are  not  in  a  position  to  conceive  the  atoms ; 
and  we  are  unable  from  the  atoms  and  their  motion  to  explain  the 
slightest  phenomenon  of  consciousness.  We  may  turn  and  twist  the 
notion  of  matter  as  we  like,  we  always  come  on  an  ultimate  something 
that  is  incomprehensible  if  not  absolutely  contradictory,  as  in  the 
hypothesis  of  forces  which  act  at  a  distance  through  empty  space- 
There  is  no  hope  of  ever  solving  this  problem ;  the  hindrance  is  trans- 
cendental."* 

Materialism,  then,  must  admit  that  it  cannot  explain  the  known 
facts  of  the  universe.  Therein  it  acknowledges  its  own  defeat.  As 
Lange  truly  says :  "  The  whole  cause  of  Materialism  is  lost  by  the  ad- 
mission of  the  inexplicableness  of  all  natural  occurrences.  If  mate- 

*  See  Lange :  History  of  Materialism ;  translation  by  Thomas.    Vol.  II.,  309. 


426  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

rialism  quietly  acquiesces  in  this  inexplicableness,  it    ceases  to  be  a 
philosophical  principle."* 

V.  The  reasonable  conclusion  is  that  man  as  a  personal  being  is 
spirit,  supernatural  and  hyper-material.  He  has  knowledge  of  him- 
self in  his  own  self-consciousness  as  a  person.  Personality  thus  known 
cannot  be  identified  with  matter  and  the  energy  which  manifests  itself 
in  motion.  It  is  also  legitimate,  according  to  the  common  usage  of 
science,  to  assume  a  peculiar  agent  manifesting  itself  in  the  attributes 
of  personality  and  accounting  for  them.  Matter  and  energy  them- 
selves require  the  assumption  of  some  agent  other  than  matter  and 
energy  to  account  for  them ;  materialism  can  account  for  neither  the 
facts  of  personality  nor  the  facts  of  matter  and  motor-force.  Thus  by 
the  severest  scientific  investigations  the  knowledge  of  self  given  in  self- 
consciousness  is  confirmed,  and  the  result  of  reasoning  is  that  in  know- 
ing myself  a  person  I  know  myself  as  spirit  supernatural  and  hyper- 
material.  And  thus  also  the  way  is  opened  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
transcendent  Power  which  is  the  absolute  ground  of  the  universe  is  the 
absolute  Keason,  the  eternal  Spirit,  the  personal  God.  And  this  know- 
ledge fills  me  with  reverence  for  myself  as,  by  personality,  in  the  image 
of  God  and  ennobled  above  matter  and  its  energies,  however  Sublime 
they  may  be  in  their  manifestations  in  the  universe,  and  however  weak 
and  short-lived  I  may  be  in  my  physical  connection  with  the  material 
world.  Pascal  says :  "  Man  is  but  a  reed,  the  weakest  thing  in  nature, 
but  it  is  a  reed  that  thinks.  There  is  no  need  that  the  universe  arm 
itself  to  crush  him.  A  vapor,  a  drop  of  water  is  enough  to  kill  him. 
But  though  the  universe  should  crush  him,  man  is  more  noble  than  that 
which  destroys  him,  for  he  knows  that  he  dies ;  but  the  universe,  with 
all  the  advantage  which  it  has  over  him,  the  universe  knows  nothing 
whatever  about  it."f  And  Kant  says :  "  Two  things  fill  my  soul  with 
always  new  and  increasing-  wonder  and  awe,  and  often  and  persistently 
my  thought  busies  itself  therewith  : — the  starry  heavens  above  me  and 
the  moral  law  within  me.  Both  I  need  not  seek  and  merely  conjecture 
as  concealed  in  darkness  or  in  their  greatness  beyond  my  vision ;  I  see 
them  before  me  and  knit  them  immediately  with  the  consciousness  of 
existence.  The  first  begins  at  the  place  which  I  occupy  in  the  world 
of  sense  and  broadens  into  the  immeasurable  vast  of  space  and  time 
my  connection  with  worlds  on  worlds  and  systems  on  systems.  The 
second  begins  at  my  invisible  self,  my  personality,  and  places  me  in  a 
universe  which  has  true  infinitude  but  is  perceptible  only  to  the  in- 
tellect, and  with  which  I  know  myself  connected,  not,  as  in  the  other 


*  History  of  Materialism  ;  Thomas'  Trans.     Vol.  II.,  p.  161. 

t  Pascal:  PensSes,  Chap,  ii.,  X.,  p.  132,  Louandre's  Ed.    Paris:  1858. 


PERSONALITY.  427 

case,  by  -  contingent,  but  by  universal  and  necessary  connections. 
The  first  glance  at  an  innumerable  multitude  of  worlds  annihilates  my 
importance  as  an  animal  creature  that  must  give  back  the  matter  of 
which  it  was  made  to  the  planet — itself  a  mere  point  in  the  universe — 
after  it  has  been  for  a  short  time,  we  know  not  how  short,  endowed 
with  vital  force.  The  second,  on  the  contrary,  exalts  my  worth  as  an 
intelligence  infinitely,  through  my  personality,  in  which  the  moral  law 
reveals  to  me  a  life  independent  of  animal  nature  and  even  of  the 
whole  universe  of  sense,  at  least  so  far  as  the  end  of  my  existence  is 
determined  by  this  law  which  is  not  limited  within  the  conditions  and 
bounds  of  this  life,  but  goes  on  into  infinitude."* 

*  Kritik  der  Praktischen  Vernunft :    Beschluss:  Werke,  8,  312. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 


MATERTALTSTIC   OBJECTIONS  TO  THE  EXISTENCE  OF 
PERSONAL  BEINGS. 


?  78.    The  First  Materialistic  Objection  :  from  Sensation- 
alism, or  the  Complete  Positivism  of  Comte.. 

As  in  the  progress  of  investigation  it  becomes  apparent  that  the  facts 
both  of  personality  and  of  nature  cannot  be  accounted  for  by  matter 
and  force  alone,  and  that  the  existence  of  some  supernatural  and 
hyper-material  power  must  be  acknowledged  to  explain  them,  the 
materialist  is  shut  up  to  the  alternative  either  to  recognize  some  such 
transcendent  power  or  to  return  to  the  complete  positivism  of  Comte, 
and  refuse  all  recognition  of  atoms,  molecules,  ether,  cause  and  force. 
We  suppose  that  he  resorts  to  the  latter  position.  Against  the  doctrine 
that  personal  beings  are  spirit  he  objects  that  man  has  knowledge 
only  of  the  phenomena  of  sense.  This  is  materialism  on  its  subjective 
side.  Thus  Lange  says :  "  Sensationalism  is  the  subjective  of  which 
materialism  is  the  objective. "  So  I.  H.  Fichte :  "  Materialism  and 
sensationalism  are  the  same ;  the  latter  denned  subjectively,  as  to  our 
sources  of  knowledge ;  the  former  objectively,  as  to  what  is  known."* 

I  have  shown  in  previous  discussions  that  every  theory  of  sensation- 
alism and  phenomenalism  is  a  false  and  inadequate  theory  of  know- 
ledge. To  these  discussions  I  may  refer  as  an  answer  to  the  objection. 
If  the  theory  of  knowledge  is  false,  the  objection  founded  on  it  is  nulli- 
fied. It  is  necessary  to  add  only  some  considerations  bearing  directly 
on  the  presentation  of  the  theory  as  subjective  materialism,  and  con- 
stituting additional  evidence  that  the  theory  is  inconsistent  and  un- 
tenable. 

I.  The  first  answer  is  that  the  sensational  philosophy  or  the  com- 
plete Positivism  of  Comte  is  inconsistent  with  materialism.  Material- 
ism asserts  the  existence,  indestructibility  and  eternity  of  matter  and 
force.  It  goes  beneath  phenomena  and  finds  their  essential  reality 
in  matter  and  force.  It  asserts  knowledge  of  self-existent,  absolute 


*  Lange:  Geschichte  des  Materialismus,  I.,  26.     I.  H.  Fichte:  Theistische  Weltan- 
sicht,  S.  63. 
428 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  SENSATIONALISM.        429 

being,  and  the  knowledge  that  that  being  is  matter.  Sensationalism 
is  contradicted  by  all  of  these  assertions. 

I  have  said  that  the  doctrine  that  knowledge  is  limited  to  objects 
of  sense  is  the  subjective  side  of  materialism.  It  is  evident  that  this 
subjective  side  of  materialism  is  in  direct  contradiction  of  objective 
materialism,  which  asserts  the  eternity  of  matter.  Whoever  accepts 
the  complete  positivism  of  Comte  must  renounce  materialism  or  else 
contradict  himself.  It  is  thus  that  Mr.  Huxley  disclaims  materialism. 
He  says :  "All  that  we  know  about  motion  is  that  it  is  a  name  for 
certain  changes  in  the  relation  of  our  visual,  tactile  and  muscular 
sensations ;  and  all  that  we  know  about  matter  is  that  it  is  the 
hypothetical  substance  of  physical  phenomena,  the  assumption  of  the 
existence  of  which  is  as  pure  a  piece  of  metaphysical  speculation  as 
that  of  the  substance  of  mind.  Our  sensations,  our  pleasures,  our 
pains,  and  the  relations  of  these  make  up  the  sum  total  of  the  elements 
of  positive,  unquestionable  knowledge.  We  call  a  large  section  of  these 
sensations  and  their  relations  matter  an$  motion ;  the  rest  we  term 
mind  and  thinking;  and  experience  shows  that  there  is  a  constant 
order  of  succession  between  some  of  the  former  and  some  of  the  latter."* 
He  can  disclaim  being  a  materialist  because  he  is  a  complete  positivist 
or  sensationalist.  And  yet  he  admits  that  it  is  as  impossible  for  a 
scientist  to  think  without  using  metaphysics  as  for  a  Brahmin  to  eat 
and  drink  without  destroying  animal  life.  Metaphysical  ideas  are  at 
the  basis  of  all  scientific  thought  and  knowledge. 

Complete  Positivism  is  equally  inconsistent  with  the  Spencerian 
agnosticism,  which  declares  that  the  belief  that  absolute  being  exists 
is  a  primitive  datum  of  consciousness,  although  it  is  impossible  to  know 
what  it  is. 

Both  the  materialist  and  the  Spencerian  agnostic  build  on  those 
primitive  principles  of  intelligence  which,  as  constituent  elements 
of  reason,  of  themselves  imply  the  existence  of  the  mind  and  disclose 
its  rational  constitution. 

Materialism  is,  however,  inconsistent  with  Spencer's  agnosticism. 
While  the  latter  insists  that  it  is  impossible  to  know  what  the  Absolute 
is,  the  materialist  explicitly  affirms  that  it  is  matter  and  motor-force. 

Here  are  three  theories,  each  excluding  the  others.  A  materialist 
cannot  accept  the  position  nor  use  the  arguments  of  the  sensationalist 
nor  those  of  the  agnostic.  And  yet  these  three  theories  are  continually 
confounded  and  often  grouped  together  under  the  name  of  material- 
ism. And  the  denier  of  theism  is  found  slipping  back  and  forth  from 
one  of  these  positions  to  another,  using  indiscriminately  the  objections 

*  Sensation  and  Sensiferous  Organs;  Nineteenth  Century:  1879. 


430  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM.  ' 

peculiar  to  each.  It  is  important  therefore  that  their  distinction  and 
incompatibility  be  pointed  out,  in  order  to  expose  these  subterfuges, 
whether  resorted  to  in  ignorance  or  in  sophistry. 

II.  Sensationalism,  being  a  false  theory  of  knowledge,  is  inconsistent 
with  physical  science. 

In  the  first  place,  whoever  accepts  it  as  the  basis  of  denying  the 
existence  of  spirit,  must  give  up  the  law  of  the  Persistence  of  Force. 
Comte  rigorously  excluded  the  ideas  of  cause  and  force,  of  atoms, 
molecules  and  ether  from  science.  He  insisted  that  if  the  idea  of 
cause  is  once  admitted,  that  of  a  first  cause  must  be  admitted  with  it 
and  theology  would  be  inevitable  and  legitimate.  But  at  the  very 
time  when  he  was  elaborately  propounding  this  doctrine  in  his  Positive 
Philosophy,  the  investigations  of  Mayer  and  others  were  already  going 
on  wfhich  have  established  the  law  of  the  persistence  of  force — 
a  sort  of  physical  embodiment  of  the  metaphysical  principle  of  causa- 
tion ;  have  set  forth  force,  which  Comte  insisted  on  excluding,  as  an 
essential  reality  of  the  physical  universe  and  the  central  topic  of 
physical  science ;  have  set  up  the  hypotheses  of  atoms,  molecules  and 
the  ether ;  and  have  saturated  physical  science  itself  with  metaphysics 
and  theology.  In  consequence  of  this,  whoever  goes  back  to  sensation- 
alism as  the  theory  of  knowledge,  finds  himself  left  behind  by  scientific 
thought  in  every  direction.  Physical  science  cannot  be  held  in  the 
cerements  of  sensationalism  in  which  Comte  endeavored  to  embalm  it. 
It  goes  beneath  the  phenomena  to  their  essential  reality;  it  reveals 
the  "thing  in  itself"  of  gross  matter  and  its  perceptible  motions,  in 
vortex-atoms  and  in  ethers,  in  vibrations,  undulations,  impacts  beyond 
the  range  of  perception  and  even  of  conception ;  it  declares  the  exist- 
ence, persistence  and  indestructibility  of  matter  and  force.  It  goes 
abroad  through  all  space  and  backwards  and  forwards  through  all 
time,  and  reveals  the  necessary  activities  and  transformations  of  physi- 
cal forces.  It  finds  masses,  distances,  motions  and  energies  measur- 
able and  their  laws  determinable,  in  accordance  with  that  pure  creation 
of  the  human  mind,  mathematics,  in  which  every  conclusion  is  demon- 
strated. Thus  instead  of  saying  that  all  knowledge  is  given  in  sense, 
we  find  that  the  greater  part  of  knowledge  transcends  sense ;  instead 
of  saying  that  sense  gives  the  only  certainty,  we  may  almost  say, 
"  The  farther  from  sense  the  greater  the  certainty."  Accordingly  Dr. 
Youmans  says  of  Physical  Science  that  "  its  tendency  is  ever  from  the 
material  toward  the  abstract,  the  ideal,  the  spiritual."* 

Mr.  Lewes  says :  "  The  sensational  hypothesis  is  acceptable  if  by  sense 
we  understand  sensibility  and  its  laws  of  operation.  This  indeed  .... 

*  Correlation  and  Conservation  of  Force,  p.  11. 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  SENSATIONALISM.         431 

is  an  extension  of  the  term,  and  obliterates  the  very  distinction  insisted 
on  by  the  other  school ;  but  since  it  includes  all  psychical  phenomena 
under  the  rubric  of  sensibility,  it  enables  psychological  analysis  to  be 
consistent  and  exhaustive  ; "  without  this  change,  he  admits,  "  The  re- 
duction of  all  knowledge  to  a  sensuous  origin  is  absurd."*  That  is,  he 
changes  the  meaning  of  Sense,  so  as  to  include  in  it  all  the  primitive 
data  of  intelligence  and  the  principles  regulative  of  all  thought,  and 
then  claims  that  all  psychical  powers  are  included  in  sense. 

III.  Sensationalism  is  self-contradictory,  and  involves  difficulties 
which  only  the  recognition  of  personal  spirit  can  remove.  It  starts  as 
a  form  of  materialism.  We  have  knowledge  through  the  senses ;  that 
is,  we  have  knowledge  of  objects  of  sense  and  of  these  alone.  The 
outward  object  is  assumed  to  exist  independent  of  sense,  and  sensation 
itself  arises  as  an  impression  on  the  sensorium.  And  it  is  affirmed  that 
the  outward  object  existed  ages  before  there  was  any  living  sensorium 
susceptible  of  receiving  impressions  or  sensations  from  it.  Mind,  then, 
has  no  reality  except  as  related  to  the  outward  or  material  object.  It 
becomes  merely  "  the  series  of  our  sensations,"  "  a  thread  of  conscious- 
ness." The  Ego  is  lost  in  the  non-ego.  Even  Mill,  who  transcended 
the  sensationalism  of  Comte  by  the  recognition  of  consciousness  as  a 
knowledge  of  internal  feelings,  is  obliged  to  define  mind  only  as  rela- 
tive to  matter ;  it  is  "  nothing  but  the  series  of  our  sensations  (to 
which  must  now  be  added  our  internal  feelings)  as  they  actually  occur, 
with  the  addition  of  infinite  possibilities  of  feeling  requiring  for  their 
actual  realization  conditions  which  may  or  may  not  take  place,  but 
which  as  possibilities  are  always  in  existence,  and  many  of  them 
present."f  Mind,  therefore,  is  a  series  of  sensations,  and  as  such,  is 
merely  a  phenomenon  of  matter. 

But  when  sensationalism  comes  to  define  the  outward  or  material 
object,  it  can  define  it  only  as  an  object  of  sense.  Matter  exists  only 
as  relative  to  sense.  Its  only  reality  is  sensation.  The  reality  of 
matter  is  only  its  relation  to  mind.  So  Clifford :  "  This  world  which 
I  perceive  is  my  perception  and  nothing  more." J  So  Moleschott :  "  Ex- 
cept in  relation  to  the  eye,  into  which  it  sends  its  rays,  the  tree  has 
no  existence."§  So  Mill :  "  Matter  may  be  defined  a  Permanent  Pos- 
sibility of  Sensation."| |  And  so  Mr.  Huxley,  in  the  passage  last  quoted 
from  him,  identifies  matter  with  sensation.  Here  sensationalism  issues 
in  Idealism ;  the  non-ego  disappears  in  the  Ego.  But  not  the  less, 
after  resolving  the  material  world  into  sensations,  do  the  sensation- 

*  Problems  of  Life  and  Mind.     Vol.  I.,  pp.  191,  192, 

+  Mill  on  Hamilton,  L,  253.  {  Lectures  and  Essays.    Vol.  I.,  p.  288. 

£  Lange  :  Hist.  Materialism ;  Thomas'  Trans.     Vol.  I.,  pp.  41,  42. 

||  On  Hamilton,  I.,  243. 


432  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

alists  affirm  its  existence  millions  of  ages  before  there  was  any  mind  to 
perceive  it.  Thus  they  begin  with  affirming  that  mind  is  a  function  of 
matter  and  end  with  affirming  that  matter  is  a  phenomenon  of  mind. 
When  the  sensationalist  seeks  to  apprehend  mind,  he  can  apprehend  it 
only  as  sensations  which  presuppose  the  existence  of  matter  and  are 
occasioned  by  its  presence.  When  he  seeks  to  apprehend  matter,  it  is 
merely  an  object  of  sense  having  reality  only  as  related  to  the  sensa- 
tions which  it  is  supposed  to  precede  and  occasion.  We  are  told  that 
mind  consists  of  sensations  occasioned  by  the  presence  of  bodies  and 
then  we  are  told  that  bodies  are  merely  abstractions  of  the  sensations 
which  themselves  occasion.  If  we  attempt  to  stop  this  logical  see-saw, 
and  insist  on  definitions  of  mind  and  matter  which  will  not  alternately 
annul  each  other,  the  only  reality  left  to  either  term  is  sensation,  with- 
out an  object  felt  or  a  subject  feeling.  And  this  necessitates  complete 
agnosticism.  This  process  was  exemplified  in  the  transition  of  English 
philosophy  from  Locke  through  Berkeley  to  Hume ;  from  sensationalism 
through  idealism  to  universal  skepticism  or  complete  agnosticism. 

Berkeley,  however,  saved  himself  from  inconsistency  by  admitting 
our  knowledge  of  personal  being  and  using  the  idealism  thus  developed 
to  refute  sensationalism.  He,  therefore,  could  acknowledge  that  the 
essence  of  matter  is  in  its  relativity  to  mind  and  still  consistently  hold 
to  its  reality  because  mind  is  real.  And  he  consistently  argued  that 
since  "  sensible  things  .  .  .  depend  not  on  my  thought  and  have  an 
existence  distinct  from  being  perceived  by  me,  there  must  be  some  other 
mind  wherein  they  exist.  As  sure,  therefore,  as  the  sensible  world 
really  exists,  so  sure  is  there  an  infinite  omnipresent  spirit  who  contains 
and  supports  it."*  But  Mill  and  the  sensationalists  leave  themselves 
no  resource  by  which  to  save  either  the  Ego  or  the  non-ego. 

These  speculations  have  a  curious  interest  as  exemplifying  the  inex- 
tricable difficulties  inseparable  from  denying  the  existence  of  spirit. 
Prof.  Huxley  says :  "  The  existence  of  a  self  and  a  not-self  are  hypotheses 
by  which  we  account  for  the  facts  of  consciousness/'f  But  who  makes 
the  hypothesis,  and  to  whom  do  the  facts  of  consciousness  appear,  and 
to  whom  is  it  necessary  to  account  for  them  ?  In  the  definitions  of 
mind  and  matter  just  now  cited  we  have  for  the  outward  world  a  possi- 
bility without  any  power,  a  permanence  with  nothing  that  is  permanent 
except  a  powerless  possibility,  and  the  permanent  possibility  of  a  sensa- 
tion without  any  entity  or  being  other  than  the  sensation.  For  the  self 
we  have  sensations  in  a  series  with  no  mind  which  is  the  subject  of 
them  or  takes  cognizance  of  their  serial  order ;  "  infinite  possibilities  of 
feeling "  with  no  power  or  being  within  or  without  to  make  them  pos- 

*  Berkeley's  Three  Dialogues.  f  Lay  Sermons,  p.  356. 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  SENSATIONALISM.         433 

sible ;  these  possibilities  "  requiring  for  their  actual  realization  condi- 
tions which  may  or  may  not  take  place,"  these  conditions  themselves 
being  possibilities  of  sensation ;  though  these  possibilities  of  sensation 
which  are  the  conditions  of  the  possibility  of  sensation  may  never  take 
place,  yet  "  as  possibilities  they  are  always  in  existence  and  many  of 
them  present."  Did  ever  mediaeval  scholastic  bewilder  himself  and  his 
readers  in  a  more  confusing  maze  of  words? 

Mr.  Spencer  with  his  "  transfigured  realism"  still  finds  himself  in 
similar  difficulties.  "  We  can  think  of  matter  only  in  terms  of  mind. 
We  can  think  of  mind  only  in  terms  of  matter.  When  we  have  pushed 
our  explorations  of  the  first  to  the  utmost  limit,  we  are  referred  to  the 
second  for  a  final  answer ;  and  when  we  have  got  the  final  answer  to 
the  second  we  are  referred  back  to  the  first  for  an  interpretation  of  it 
We  find  the  value  of  x  in  the  terms  of  y;  then  we  find  the  value  of  y 
in  the  terms  of  x;  and  so  on  we  may  continue  forever  without  coming 
nearer  to  a  solution."* 

When  it  is  shown  that  sensationalism  is  inconsistent  with  materialism, 
the  sensationalist  may  reply  that  he  cares  no  more  for  materialism  and 
the  agnostic's  Unknowable,  than  for  atheism,  theism  or  metaphysics ; 
they  are  alike  beyond  the  sphere  of  human  knowledge  and  have  no 
legitimate  place  in  scientific  thought.  He  may  comfort  himself  with 
thinking  that  at  least  he  will  escape  all  these  puzzling  questions  and 
have  opportunity  to  pursue  unvexed  his  investigations  among  phe- 
nomena of  which  he  can  have  certain  knowledge.  We  now  see  that  in 
this  expectation  he  is  necessarily  disappointed.  Physical  science  leaves 
him  behind  helplessly  entangled  in  the  difficulties  and  inconsistencies 
of  his  own  theory  of  knowledge. 

IV.  But  if  we  acknowledge  the  existence  in  the  personality  of  man 
of  a  power  supernatural  and  hyper-material,  that  is,  of  spirit,  all  these 
difficulties  vanish,  and  the  reality  of  our  knowledge  both  of  nature  and 
the  supernatural,  of  matter  and  the  hyper-material  is  established  on 
an  immovable  basis.  And  the  truth  of  this  admission  is  confirmed  by 
the  fact  that  it  solves  the  otherwise  unsolvable  problem  of  the  universe. 
We  are  no  longer  obliged  with  Spencer  to  find  the  Ultimate  Reality  in 
an  Absolute  Unknowable,  in  which  subject  and  object,  spirit  and  mat- 
ter are  united.  We  find  that  Ultimate  and  Absolute  Reality  in  Ener- 
gizing Reason.  In  this  we  find  united  and  eternal  the  Reason  and  the 
Power,  which  account  for  the  existence  both  of  matter  and  finite  spirits 
in  the  unity  of  one  all-comprehending  and  rational  system  expressing 
the  truths,  conformed  to  the  laws,  and  progressively  realizing  the  ideals 
and  ends  of  the  Wisdom  and  Love  of  perfect  and  absolute  Reason. 

*  Psychology :  §  272,  Vol.  I.,  p.  627. 
28 


434  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

V.  Aside  from  scientific  thought  the  impression  also  prevails  in 
the  popular  mind  that  we  have  clear  and  certain  knowledge  only 
through  the  senses.  To  this  unscientific  impression  materialists  appeal ; 
they  say  a  spirit  is  a  "  ghost,"  which  no  sensible  person  believes  to 
exist ;  it  is  "  nothing."  And  this  impression  is  undoubtedly  an  im- 
portant source  of  doubt  or  disbelief  of  the  existence  of  spirit  or  the 
supernatural. 

But  if  people  would  give  the  subject  a  little  thought  they  would 
know  that  knowledge  does  not  come  from  the  senses  alone.  Even  of 
the  outward  world  we  know  far  more  than  we  see  or  handle.  We  do 
not  so  much  see  with  our  e.yes  as  through  them  ;  not  so  much  the  visi- 
ble as  the  invisible.  On  a  printed  page  all  which  the  eye  sees  is  some 
black  marks  on  a  white  surface ;  but  through  the  marks  I  see  the 
thoughts  of  the  wTriter,  and  the  scenes  and  events  which  he  describes. 
In  prospecting  for  ore  one  sees  with  the  eye  only  the  ground  and  the 
rocks ;  but  through  these  he  sees  the  ore  which  the  visible  formation 
reveals.  A  babe  sees  on  its  mother's  face  certain  configurations  of  the 
surface;  but  through  the  smile,  the  frown,  or  the  tears  it  sees  the 
mother's  heart.  We  read  nature  like  a  book,  seeing  the  unseen  through 
the  seen.  And  the  unseen  includes  the  greater  part  of  our  knowledge 
of  nature. 

Nor  are  the  impressions  of  sense  the  only  trustworthy  knowledge. 
A  man  has  certain  knowledge  of  his  own  thoughts  and  feelings,  of  his 
own  individuality  and  identity.  But  the  knowledge  of  these  realities 
transcends  sense.  He  has  knowledge  of  mathematical*  axioms  and 
demonstrations ;  and  though  he  may  question  the  correctness  of  his  ob- 
servation of  a  sensible  object,  he  cannot  doubt  the  truth  of  a  mathe- 
matical demonstration.  When  the  senses  present  to  us  the  firmament 
as  a  blue  dome,  through  w7hich  the  sun  and  stars  move  from  east  to 
west,  or  parallel  rails  as  converging,  we  must  resort  to  reason  and 
judgment  to  find  the  true  significance  of  the  sensible  presentation. 
Every  hour  of  the  day  we  thus  interpret  and  correct  the  representations 
of  sense  by  the  larger  knowledge  of  reason  transcending  sense 

\  79.  Second  Materialistic  Objection  :  from  the  Correlation 
of  Mental  Phenomena  with  Motion. 

I.  A  second  objection  to  the  existence  of  personal  spirit  is  that  all 
mental  phenomena  are  correlated  with  molecular  motion  of  the  brain 
and  nerves,  and  are  transformable  into  it ;  that  thus  they  are  fully 
accounted  for  and  explained  by  the  law  of  the  persistence  of  force ; 
and  therefore  they  are  no  evidence  or  manifestation  of  the  existence  of 
spirit.  This  is  the  essential  doctrine  of  the  current  materialism.  Its 
existence  is  staked  on  proving  this  doctrine;  failing  to  establish  it 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  PERSISTENCE  OF  FORCE.    435 

materialism  demonstrates  that  it  has  no  explanation  of  mental  phe- 
nomena and  has  no  further  claims  to  consideration  as  a  philosophical 
system. 

The  materialism  of  the  eighteenth  century  also  rested  on  physiological 
explanations  of  the  facts  of  mind.  Cabanis  in  his  earlier  writings 
taught  that  the  brain  secretes  thought  as  the  liver  secretes  bile. 
Condillac  taught  that  all  mental  phenomena  are  simply  transformed 
sensations.  Baron  d'Holbach  defined  thought  to  be  an  agitation  of  the 
nerves.  Lamettrie  and  Helvetius  broached  a  similar  doctrine.  Xoir6 
-  that  the  materialists  of  that  century  taught  that  a  fume  of  the 
stomach,  if  it  had  taken  its  way  upward  to  the  brain,  might  have  be- 
come a  sublime  thought.* 

The  physiological  materialism  of  to-day,  though  connected  with  an 
advanced  knowledge  of  science,  is  scarcely  less  crude.  Moleschott 
teaches  that  "  thought  is  a  motion  of  matter."  Karl  Vogt  holds,  with 
Cabanis,  that  "  thought  stands  in  the  same  relation  to  the  brain  as  the 
bile  to  the  liver."  Dr.  Biichner,  following  Vogt,  though  objecting  to 
the  coarseness  and  inexactness  of  his  illustration,  teaches  that  the  soul 
is  a  product  of  the  development  of  the  brain,  just  as  muscular  activity 
is  a  product  of  muscular  development,  and  secretion  a  product  of 
glandular  development.  "  The  same  power  which  digests  by  means  of 
the  stomach,  thinks  by  means  of  the  brain."  "  The  brain  is  only  the 
carrier  and  the  source,  or  rather  the  sole  cause  of  the  spirit  or  thought." 
"Mental  activity  is  a  function  of  the  cerebral  substance."f  Mr. 
Charles  Bray  says :  "  Conscious  cerebration  or  mind  is  transformed 
force  received  into  the  body  in  the  food,  and  is,  like  all  force,  persistent 
or  indestructible."!  Prof.  Haeckel  says :  "  The  human  mind  is  a  func- 
tion of  the  central  nervous  system.''§  Lewes  says :  "  The  neural 
process  and  the  feeling  are  one  and  the  same  process  viewed  under 
different  aspects.  .  .  .  Mind  ...  is  a  function  of  the  organism; 
and  this  both  in  the  mathematical  and  the  biological  sense  of  the  term."|| 
Prof.  Tyndall,  though  elsewhere  explicitly  denying  that  matter  as  ordi- 
narily conceived  can  explain  life  and  mind,  yet  "  prolongs  the  vision 
backward  ....  and  discerns  in  matter  .  .  .  the  promise  and 
potency  of  every  form  and  quality  of  terrestrial  life."^[  Prof.  Huxley 
says :  "  While  it  is  impossible  to  demonstrate  that  any  given  phenomenon 
is  not  the  effect  of  a  material  cause,  any  one  who  is  acquainted  with  the 
history  of  science  will  admit  that  its  progress  has  in  all  ages  meant, 

*  Die  Welt  als  Entwickelung  des  Geistes ;  ss.  18,  19. 

f  Kraft  und  Stoff.     Chaps  xii.,  xiii. 

J  Force  and  its  Mental  and  Moral  Correlates :  p.  98. 

$  Evolution  of  Man.     Vol.  II.,  p.  454.     Translation. 

I  Problems  of  Life  and  Mind.    II.,  411.  «[  Belfast  Address. 


436  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

and  now  more  than  ever  means,  the  extension  of  the  province  of  what 
we  call  matter  and  causation,  and  the  concomitant  gradual  banishment 
from  all  regions  of  human  thought  of  what  we  call  spirit  and  spon- 
taneity."* Lange  says :  "  The  peculiar  kind  of  motion  which  we  call 
rational  must  be  explained  by  the  common  laws  of  all  motion,  or  there 
is  no  explanation  at  all.  The  defect  of  all  materialism  is  that  it  stops 
with  this  explanation  at  the  point  where  the  highest  problems  of  phil- 
osophy begin.  But  whoever  boggles  with  pretended  principles  of 
reason,  which  admit  of  no  concrete  intelligent  apprehension,  in  the  ex- 
planation of  outward  nature  including  the  rational  man,  destroys 
the  whole  basis  of  science,  whether  his  name  is  Aristotle  or  Zeller."f 

II.  Before  refuting  this  objection  I  make  the  following  explana- 
tions of  the  question  at  issue : 

1.  Admitting  that  mental  action  in  man  is  accompanied  by  mole- 
cular action  of  the  brain  and  by  waste  of  neural  matter  which  must 
be  replaced  by  food,  I  propose  to  show  that  materialism  cannot  account 
for  the  mental  action. 

If  an  observer  with  a  microscope  could  see  in  the  living  brain  the 
molecular  orbits  of  anger  and  the  different  molecular  orbits  of  love, 
that  would  no  more  prove  a  materializing  of  mind  than  the  familiar  fact 
that  without  a  microscope  we  see  anger  paling  in  the  face  and  benignity 
beaming  upon  it.  The  fact  that  the  spirit  in  its  action  affects  the 
bodily  organization  does  not  disprove  the  existence  of  spirit  any  more 
than  the  fact  that  piano-keys  have  different  combinations  of  move- 
ment to  express  different  tunes  proves  that  music  is  identical  with  the 
motion,  and  that  there  is  no  musician.  Moleschott's  "  No  thought 
without  phosphorus,"  might  be  true  of  all  living  men,  and  yet  not 
prove  materialism  nor  disprove  the  existence  of  spirit.  Materialism 
cannot  account  for  or  explain  mental  phenomena  by  the  fact  that  they 
are  accompanied  by  molecular  action  of  the  brain.  If  not  only  cannot 
account  for  them  philosophically,  but  it  also  cannot  account  for  them 
empirically  by  co-ordinating  the  mental  phenomena  and  the  molecular 
motions  under  the  law  of  the  persistence  of  force.  And  if  it  cannot 
account  for  them,  it  proves  itself  false ;  for  it  is  the  very  essence  of 
materialism  that  it  must  account  for  all  phenomena,  physical  and 
mental,  by  matter  and  motor-force. 

2.  It  is  not  essential  to  my  argument  to  prove  that  the  human  spirit 
or  any  finite  spirit  ever  exists  and  acts  separate  from  and  independent 
of  matter.  This  connection  is  analogous  to  the  connection  between  matter 
and  force  as  commonly  presented  in  physical  science.     Matter  and  force 

*  Physical  Basis  of  Life  :  p.  20. 

f  Geschichte  des  Materialismus.    I.,  20,  21. 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  PERSISTENCE  OF  FORCE.    437 

are  not  identified  by  science  and  they  are  not  disparted ;  they  are  dis- 
tinct and  yet  together.  The  movements  of  bodies  compel  the  belief 
that  there  is  something  which  is  moved,  which  we  call  matter,  and  some 
power  that  moves  it  which  we  call  force.  Science  thus  sharply  dis- 
tinguishes them,  while  it  recoils  from  the  belief  that  either  exists  with- 
out the  other.  Just  so  philosophy  concludes  from  the  facts  of  per- 
sonality and  even  from  those  of  force  itself,  that  there  must  exist 
another  power,  distinct  from  both  matter  and  force,  which  it  calls  spirit. 
While  spirit  is  thus  distinct  from  matter  and  force  and  cannot  be  iden- 
tified with  them,  it  is  not  necessary  to  its  existence  that  it  be  disparted 
from  them.  And  if  it  should  be  found  that  all  finite  spirit  in  the 
universe  is  in  some  way  connected  with  some  form  of  matter,  the  fact 
would  not  conflict  with  the  fact  of  its  existence  as  spirit,  endowed  with 
attributes  of  personality,  and  distinct  alike  from  matter  and  the  energy 
which  causes  motion.  This  is  accordant  with  what  we  have  already 
seen,  that  matter  is  not  the  bound  and  prison  of  the  spirit,  but  rather 
gives  occasion  and  excitement,  instruments  and  resources,  place  and 
scope  for  its  action  and  development. 

And  this  accords  with  the  well-known  teachings  both  of  philosophy 
and  theology.  In  all  our  experience  in  this  life  we  know  the  spirit  of 
man  acting  through  brain  and  nerve.  The  spirit,  "  here  in  the  body 
pent,"  is  often  conceived  of  under  some  illustration  like  that  of  a  man 
in  submarine  armor,  working  encumbered  and  straitened  for  breath  at 
the  bottom  of  the  sea ;  but  he  is  to  rise  to  the  upper  air,  a  sphere  better 
fitted  for  his  life  and  action.  Yet  there  he  is  disencumbered  of  his 
armor  only  to  put  on  a  clothing  more  pliable  to  his  movements,  and  is 
liberated  from  his  watery  environment  only  to  breathe  the  freer  air. 
So  the  Scriptures  represent  the  spirit  leaving  the  earthly  body,  "  not 
to  be  unclothed  but  clothed  upon ; "  acting  in  a  "  spiritual  body  "  amid 
celestial  environments.  As  force  passes  from  body  to  body  revealing 
itself  in  new  forms  and  yet  does  not  cease  to  be  force,  so  spirit  may 
enswathe  itself  in  new  and  ethereal  matter  and  yet  not  cease  to  be 
spirit. 

Materialists  compare  the  brain  to  a  musical  instrument,  and  the 
mental  phenomena  to  the  music.  It  is  true,  they  say,  that  the  music  of 
a  piano  cannot  be  identified  with  the  movements  of  the  keys ;  but 
when  the  instrument  is  destroyed  the  music  perishes.  But  in  fact  this 
comparison  signifies  just  the  contrary.  For  the  music  is  not  in  the 
piano  any  more  than  the  mental  phenomena  are  in  the  brain.  The 
music  is  in  the  mind  of  the  hearer,  it  came  from  the  mind  of  the  com- 
poser, and  expresses  the  mind  of  the  pianist.  If  the  piano  is  destroyed 
the  music  survives  in  the  musical  mind  which  presently  finds  for  it  a 
new  instrument  by  which  it  can  reveal  itself  again.  Even  when  the 


438  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

musician's  hand  has  lost  its  skill,  the  music  survives  in  his  mind  inaudi- 
ble, ready  again  to  burst  on  the  ear  when  a  hand  capable  of  musical 
execution  is  provided. 

•    ,      .  •* 

"As  a  good  harper  stricken  far  in  years, 

Into  whose  cunning  hand  the  gout  doth  fall, 
All  his  old  crotchets  in  his  mind  he  bears, 
But  on  his  harp  plays  ill  or  not  at  all." 

3.  It  is  not  necessary  to  my  argument  to  deny  that  vitality  is  co- 
ordinated with  motion  under  the  law  of  the  persistence  of  force. 
Scientists  are  by  no  means  agreed  in  accepting  this  co-ordination  as  an 
established  fact.*  But  if  it  were  so,  it  would  not  prove  that  person- 
ality is  thus  co-ordinated ;  for  personality  is  much  more  than  vitality. 
What  is  true  of  vitality,  which  may  exist  in  a  vegetable,  is  not  there- 
fore true  of  personality.  This  would  be  like  arguing  that  because  some 
physiological  phenomena  can  be  explained  by  chemical  or  mechanical 
action,  therefore  man  is  not  alive.  It  is  equally  futile  to  argue  that 
because  life  can  be  explained  by  the  law  of  the  persistence  of  force, 
therefore  man  is  not  a  person. 

With  these  explanations  I  proceed  to  answer  the  objection  under 
consideration. 

III.  My  first  answer  is  that  the  correlation  and  reciprocal  converti- 
bility of  mental  phenomena  with  the  molecular  motion  of  the  brain  is 
not  sustained  by  physical  science. 

1.  Mental  phenomena  are  essentially  unlike  motion  and  cannot  be 
measured,  as  force  is,  by  pound-feet.  Force  manifests  its  presence 
in  molecular  motion  and  causes  waste  of  brain.  But  the  phenomena 
to  be  explained  are  not  motion  and  waste  of  brain,  but  conscious 
thought,  feeling  and  determination.  All  that  matter  and  force  can 
account  for  is  the  motion  and  waste  of  brain.  They  cannot  account 
for  the  totally  different  phenomena  of  mind.  We  are  as  far  as  ever 
from  explaining  them.  This  is  clearly  expressed  by  Dr.  J.  R.  Mayer, 
one  of  the  scientists  prominent  in  establishing  the  law  of  the  Persistence 
of  Force :  "  It  is  a  great  error  to  identify  these  two  activities  (thought 
and  the  molecular  action  of  the  brain),  which  proceed  parallel  to  each 
other.  .  .  .  We  know  there  can  be  no  telegraphic  communication 
without  a  concomitant  chemical  action.  But  what  the  telegraph  says 
could  never  be  regarded  as  the  function  of  the  electro-chemical  action. 
This  is  still  truer  of  the  brain  and  thought.  The  brain  is  only  the 
machine,  it  is  not  the  thought.  Intelligence,  which  is  not  a  part  of 
sensible  things,  cannot  be  submitted  to  the  investigation  of  the  physicist 

*  Prof.  Balfour  Stewart :  Conservation  of  Energy,  p.  173. 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  PERSISTENCE  OF  FORCE.    439 

and  the  anatomist ;  what  is  true  subjectively  is  also  true  objectively. 
Without  this  harmony,  eternally  established  by  God,  between  the 
subjective  and  the  objective  worlds,  all  our  thinking  would  be 
sterile."* 

2.  If  force  were  transformed  into  thought,  feeling  or  determination, 
it  would  cease  to  be  force  and  would  disappear.     The  only  manifesta- 
tion of  force  is  motion.     But  thought,  emotion,  and  choice  or  volition 
are  not  motion.     But  according  to  the  supposition  the  force  which  was 
first  manifested  in  the  motion  of  the  brain,  is  next  manifested  in  these 
conscious  mental  acts.     It  is  transformed    into   thought,  feeling  and 
determination  precisely  as  the  molar  motion  of  a  hammer  striking  an 
anvil  is  transformed  into  molecular  motion.     It  is  transformed   into 
something  which  is  not  motion  and  which  cannot  be  measured.     And 
there  is  no  evidence  that  it  ever  reappears  as  force.     The  doctrine, 
then,  can  have  no  scientific  basis  till  it  can  be  proved  that  a  meas- 
ured  quantity  of  force  is   transformed   into   a   measured  and  equal 
quantity  of  thought,  feeling  or  determination,  and   this  quantity  of 
thought,  feeling  or  determination  is  transformed  back  into  the  original 
quantity   of  force.     This  of  course   can   never  be   done,  for   mental 
qualities  cannot  be  quantitatively  measured. 

3.  All  the   force   manifested   in   the  molecular  action  is   fully  ac- 
counted for  by  physical  changes  in  the  body.     Prof.  Simon  Newcomb, 
in  a  series  of  articles  on  the  subject  published  in  the  Independent, 
says :    "  All  experiments  tend  to  prove  that  all  the  force  taken  into 
the  body  in  the  form  of  food  is  expended  in  the  production  of  heat 
and  muscular  action;    and  if  this  be  so,  there  is  nothing   left  to  be 
transformed  into  thought."     He  criticises  Spencer  for  citing  in  support 
of  the  co-ordination  of  thought  and  motion  under  the  law  of  the  per- 
sistence of  force,  a  fact  which  disproves  it:  "  He  cites  the  well-kno>Tn 
fact  that  strong  mental  action  is  accompanied  by  motion  in  the  blood, 
evident  by  an  examination  of  the  face  and  proved  physiologically  in 
an  abundance  of  ways.     But  this  only  disproves  the  theory,  because, 
on  the  theory,  thought  ought  to  be  accompanied  not  by  an  evolution, 
but  by  a  disappearance  of  other  forms  of  force."     "  In  every  case  we 
have  reason  to  believe  that,  at  each  moment  the  total  amount  of  force 
which  has  been  put  into  the  body  from  all  external  sources  whatever, 
is  exactly  represented  by  the  chemical  changes  and  molecular  motions 
going  on  among  the  molecules  of  the  body."     In  accord  with   this 
Prof.  Fiske  says  of  the  resolving  of  mental  phenomena  into  motion : 
"  Those  who  really  comprehend  the  import  of  modern  discoveries  in 
molecular  physics  are  more  thoroughly  convinced  than  ever  that  any 

*  Discourse  at  the  Scientific  Reunion  at  Innsbruck,  Sept.,  1869. 


440  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

such  reduction  is  utterly  beyond  the  bounds  of  possibility.  .  .  .  The 
dynamic  circuit  is  absolutely  complete  without  taking  psychical  mani- 
festations into  the  account  at  all.  No  conceivable  advance  in  physi- 
cal discovery  can  get  us  outside  of  this  closed  circuit ;  and  into  this 
circuit  psychical  phenomena  do  not  enter.  Psychical  phenomena 
stand  outside  of  this  circuit,  parallel  with  that  brief  segment  of  it 

which  is  made  up  of  molecular  motions  in  nerve  tissue One 

grand  result  of  the  enormous  progress  achieved  during  the  past  forty 
years  in  the  analysis  of  both  physical  and  psychical  phenomena  has 
been  the  final  and  irretrievable  overthrow  of  the  materialistic  hy- 
pothesis."* Of  the  same  purport  are  the  words  of  Prof.  David  Fer- 
rier  :  "  We  may  succeed  in  determining  the  exact  nature  of  the  mole- 
cular changes  which  occur  in  the  brain-cells  when  a  sensation  is  ex- 
perienced, but  this  will  not  bring  us  one  whit  nearer  the  explanation 
of  what  constitutes  the  ultimate  nature  of  sensation.  The  one  is  sub- 
jective and  the  other  is  objective,  and  neither  can  be  expressed  in 
terms  of  the  other."f  Prof.  Tyndall  implies  the  same  when  he  says> 
in  an  article  on  "  Virchow  and  Evolution,"  that  "  the  physical  pro- 
cesses "  (of  the  brain  and  nerve)  "  are  complete  in  themselves,  and 
would  go  on  just  as  they  do  if  consciousness  were  not  at  all  impli- 
cated." So  Lange,  following  Du  Bois-Reymond,  says :  "  We  must 
rise  to  the  conclusion  that  the  whole  activity  of  man,  individuals  as 
well  as  peoples,  might  go  on  as  it  actually  does  go  on,  without  the 
occurring  in  any  single  individual  of  anything  resembling  a  thought 
or  a  sensation.  ...  If  we  supposed  two  worlds  occupied  by  men 
and  their  doings,  with  the  same  course  of  history,  with  the  same  modes 
of  expression  by  gesture,  the  same  sounds  of  voice  for  an  observer  who 
could  hear  them  ....  the  two  worlds  to  be  exactly  alike,  with  only 
this  difference  that  in  the  one  it  is  all  machinery  running  down  like 
an  automaton,  without  any  consciousness,  without  any  thought  or  feel- 
ing, while  the  other  is  just  our  world ;  then  the  scientific  formula  for 
these  two  worlds  would  be  entirely  the  same.  To  the  eye  of  exact 
scientific  research  they  would  be  indistinguishable."!  In  further  carry- 
ing* out  this  supposition  Du  Bois-Reymond  says :  "A  mind  which  should 
know  for  a  very  small  period  of  time  the  position  and  movements  of  all 
the  atoms  in  the  universe  might  derive  from  these,  in  accordance  with 
the  laws  of  mechanics,  the  whole  past  and  future.  It  could,  by  an 
appropriate  treatment  of  its  world-formula,  tell  us  who  was  the  Iron 
Mask,  and  how  the  steamship  'President'  was  lost  ....  would 
read  in  its  equations  the  day  when  the  Greek  cross  will  glitter  from 

*  Cosmic  Philosophy.     Vol.  II.,  pp.  440  443. 

f  Function  of  the  Brain,  Chap.  xi. 

J  Geschichte  des  Materialismus,  B.  II.,  Sect.  2,  Chap.  i. 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  PERSISTENCE  OF  FORCE.    441 

the  mosque  of  St.  Sophia,  or  when  England  will  burn  its  last  lump 
of  coal." 

Thus  physical  science  declares  that  the  molecular  action  of  the 
brain  is  a  closed  circuit  from  which  conscious  feeling  and  thought 
and  all  mental  phenomena  are  excluded.  The  whole  force  is  accounted 
for  by  the  physical  effects  which  would  be  just  the  same  if  there  were 
no  mental  phenomena. 

Evidently,  then  the  mental  phenomena,  although  they  are  observed 
and  undisputed  facts,  remain  entirely  unaccounted  for.  The  mechanical 
theory,  in  whatever  form,  fails  to  account  for  conscious  life  and  much 
more  for  conscious  personality.  In  every  organism  mechanical  processes 
and  structures  are  found  which  accord  with  mechanical  laws  like  similar 
arrangements  in  inorganic  matter.  Besides  these  are  mental  phenomena 
which  cannot  be  transformed  into  motion  nor  explained  by  mechanical 
laws.  Here  in  the  living  organism  are  two  processes  going  on,  one 
mechanical,  the  other  mental;  they  are  coincident  in  time;  but  so 
far  as  physical  science  can  see,  the  latter  is  entirely  distinct  from  the 
former  and  entirely  inexplicable  by  its  mechanical  laws.  Mr.  Huxley 
speaks  of  "  conscious  automata,"  a  phrase  which  explains  nothing  but 
merely  sets  the  two  processes  before  us  in  their  irreducible  distinctness 
and  parallelism. 

Obviously  the  proper  course  of  the  scientist  here  is  to  recognize  these 
phenomena  .and  the  fact  that  his  theory  does  not  explain  them,  and  to 
bring  his  theory  into  conformity  with  the  facts ;  and  if  he  finds  that 
physical  science  cannot  explain  them,  he  should  acknowledge  the  reality 
and  necessity  of  mental  science.  Instead  of  this  he  pictures  a  world  of 
unconscious  automata  acting  just  as  conscious  beings  do  in  this  world 
and  insists  that  the  formula  of  science  is  entirely  exhausted  in  the 
former,  and  science  can  discern  no  difference  between  them.  When  it 
is  conceded  that  mental  phenomena  admit  of  no  mechanical  explana- 
tion, they  are  simply  ignored  and  the  mechanician  goes  on  with  his 
explanations  of  the  universe  as  if  no  such  facts  existed,  and  gravely 
propounds  his  mechanical  exposition  as  setting  forth  and  explaining 
everything  in  the  universe  which  has  any  claim  to  scientific  recognition. 
But  in  reality  if  he  is  to  ignore  either  it  should  be  the  facts  of  mechan- 
ism rather  than  the  facts  of  consciousness.  Let  us  imagine  the  suppo- 
sition just  quoted  to  be  realized.  The  world  exists  as  now.  The  men 
who  people  it  are  going  on  as  now  with  their  wars,  their  planting  and 
building  and  navigation,  their  great  industrial  inventions  and  enter- 
prizes,  they  buy  and  sell  and  get  gain,  they  have  music  and  dancing, 
they  write,  and  print,  and  read  books  and  periodicals,  they  have  schools 
and  colleges,  they  have  kings  and  parliaments,  they  discuss  and  carry 
on  great  reforms,  they  laugh  and  Aveep,  all  the  expressions  of  anger. 


442  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM 

fear,  joy,  courage  and  other  emotions,  in  face  and  attitude,  are  the  same 
as  now  ;  they  marry,  have  children,  die  and  bury  the  dead  ;  but  it  is  all 
automatic,  without  knowledge,  or  consciousness,  or  feeling.  It  is  evident 
that  the  true  reality  and  significance  of  the  world  would  be  gone  ;  it 
would  be  all  a  mockery,  were  it  not  that  in  absence  of  all  consciousness 
the  very  mockery  would  be  unreal.  On  the  contrary  if  the  same  were 
realized  without  matter  in  pure  idealism  in  human  consciousness,  the 
essential  reality  and  significance  of  the  whole  would  remain.  If  then 
either  of  these  parallel  world-processes  is  ignored,  what  reason  is  there  to 
justify  us  in  ignoring  the  conscious  and  recognizing  only  the  automatic  ? 
4.  This  being  the  case,  materialism  is  refuted.  Materialism  is  essen- 
tially the  dogmatic  assertion  that  all  phenomena  are  the  manifestations 
of  matter  and  force  and  are  accounted  for  by  them.  Mental  phenomena 
are  realities  which  materialists  do  not  deny,  but  which  they  try  to 
account  for  as  manifestations  of  matter  and  force.  But  they  are  proved 
to  be  not  the  manifestations  of  matter  and  force  and  not  accounted  for 
by  them.  Says  Lange  :  "  The  gulf  between  (thought  and  the  molecular 
motions  of  the  brain)  is  as  great  now  as  in  the  days  of  Democritus.  .  .  . 
It  will  be  forever  impossible  for  science  to  find  a  bridge  between  these 
motions  and  the  simplest  subjective  feeling  of  man."*  In  the  Preface 
to  his  Belfast  Address,  after  speaking  of  the  processes  by  which  know- 
ledge of  the  material  wrorld  is  attained,  Tyndall  says  :  "  When  we  en- 
deavor to  pass  by  a  similar  process  from  the  physics  of  the  brain  to  the 
phenomena  of  consciousness,  we  meet  a  problem  which  transcends  any 
conceivable  expansion  of  the  powers  we  now  possess.  We  may  think 
over  the  subject  again  and  again  ;  it  eludes  all  intellectual  presentation  ; 
and  we  stand  at  length  face  to  face  with  the  incomprehensible."  In 
his  address  before  the  mathematical  and  physical  section  of  the  British 
Association  in  1868  he  says  :  "  The  passage  from  the  physics  of  the 
brain  to  the  corresponding  facts  of  consciousness  is  unthinkable. 
Granted  that  a  thought  and  a  definite  molecular  action  in  the  brain 
occur  simultaneously,  we  do  not  possess  the  organ  nor  apparently  any 
rudiment  of  an  organ  which  would  enable  us  to  pass  by  a  process  of 
reasoning  from  the  one  phenomenon  to  the  other."f  These  are  declara- 
tions not  only  that  the  human  mind  has  not  yet  succeeded  in  correlat- 
ing mental  phenomena  with  molecular  motion,  but  that  by  no  conceiv- 
able expansion  of  its  powers  will  it  ever  be  able  so  to  do.  These  repre- 
sent the  conclusion  of  physical  science  on  the  subject.  And  this  con- 
clusion implies  that  materialism  as  a  philosophical  theory  of  the  universe 
is  an  entire  failure. 


*  Geschichte  des  Materialismus.    Vol.  I.,  S.  15,  16. 
f  Fragments  of  Science,  p.  1  19. 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  PERSISTENCE  OF  FORCE.    443 

IV.  My  second  answer  is  that  the  physical  phenomena  recognized  by 
science  as  concomitant  with  mental  phenomena  are  themselves,  as  ex- 
planations of  the  mental  phenomena,  inconceivable  and  involve  insuper- 
able difficulties. 

1.  Such  difficulties  inhere  in  the  physiological  explanation  of  memory 
by  the  registration  of  sensations.     Every  sensation,  emotion,  and  thought 
registers  itself  by  leaving  an  abiding  imprint  of  itself  on  the  brain, 
through  which  it  is  recalled  in  memory.     But  the  impassable  chasm, 
which  we  have  found  between  the  original  sensation  or  thought  and  the 
molecular  action  of  the  brain,  remains  impassable  between  the  mental 
act  of  memory  and  the  supposed  registration.     The  imprint  registered 
on  the  brain  has  no  resemblance  to  the  feeling  or  thought  and  cannot 
be  identified  with  it.     Such  an  imprint  can  represent  a  thought  only  as 
a  symbol,  like  a  word  written  or  spoken,  it  cannot  do  it  by  a  represen- 
tation, like  a  picture  or  image.     If  we  remember  through  a  registered 
imprint,  there  must  be  a  mind  reading  and  interpreting  the  registered 
signs.     So  all  the  phenomena  of  'memory  remain  unexplained  ;  they  lie 
outside  of  the  register  in  the  brain. 

But  if  this  registration  explains  memory,  since  it  abides  continuously 
in  the  brain  why  is  not  the  memory  continuous  in  the  consciousness  ? 
Why  do  past  mental  acts  remain  unremembered  for  years,  and  then 
suddenly  re-present  themselves  in  the  consciousness  ?  There  must  be 
some  agency  or  cause  other  than  the  registered  imprint.  And  further, 
when  the  past  event  reappears  how  do  we  know  that  it  is  the  reappear- 
ance of  the  past  ?  And  finally,  how  is  a  registration  possible,  since  the 
molecules  are  incessantly  in  motion  and  soon  pass  away  from  the  brain 
entirely  ? 

2.  Similar  difficulties  are  involved  in  the  explanation  of  tKe  unity  of 
consciousness.     The  brain  is  composed  of  a  multitude  of  atoms  in  per- 
petual motion.     But  multiplicity  is  not  unity,  and  gives  no  hint  of  ex- 
planation how  these  multitudinous  atoms  can  give  the  idea  of  personal 
individuality.    So  Du  Bois-Reymond :  "  It  is  absolutely  and  forever  in- 
conceivable that  a  number  of  carbon,  hydrogen,  nitrogen  and  oxygen 
atoms  should  be  otherwise  than  indifferent  to  their  positions  and  motions, 
past,  present  or  future.     It  is  utterly  inconceivable  how  consciousness 
should  result  from  their  joint  action."*        Nor  is  it  conceivable  that 
molecular  motions  and  their  registration  should  explain  the  conscious- 
ness of  personal  identity ;  for  the  atoms  are  perpetually  passing  away ; 
the  matter  of  the  body  changes  entirely  every  few  years.     What  con- 
ceivable registration  of  impressions  can  in  the  slightest  degree  explain 
or  account  for  the  fact  that  an  old  man  knows  himself  to  be  the  same 

*  The  Limits  of  Natural  Science ;  Lecture  before  the  German  Scientific  and  Medical 
Association,  Leipzig,  1872. 


444  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

person  that  he  was  in  childhood,  when  every  material  particle  of  his 
body  has  been  changed  many  times  in  the  period  intervening  ? 

3.  The  multitude  of  impressions  registered  on  a  minute  surface  is  in- 
conceivable as  consistent  with  the  essential  space-relations  of  matter. 
When  I  know  a  man  there  must  be  a  particular  arrangement  of  the 
molecules  of  the  brain  in  which  he  is  as  it  were  photographed  on  my 
brain.  There  must  be  also  another  and  separate  arrangement  of  mole- 
cules in  which  every  other  person  whom  I  know  is  registered ;  and  this 
must  contain  a  distinct  registry  of  all  that  is  peculiar  not  only  in  the 
form  of  the  person,  but  also  in  his  character  and  history,  so  far  as  I 
know  him ;  and  also  of  all  my  feelings  and  thoughts  respecting  him. 
The  same  must  be  true  of  all  horses,  dogs,  trees,  buildings,  and  other 
objects  which  I  know.  If  I  know  half  a  dozen  languages,  there  must 
be  an  arrangement  of  molecules  registering  every  word  and  every  gram- 
matical inflection  and  relation  of  the  words,  every  idiom,  and  the  con- 
tents of  every  book  that  I  have  read.  If  I  have  traveled,  the  map  of  all 
I  have  seen  is  registered  in  the  brain.  And  while  all  generalizations 
and  general  names  which  I  have  formed  must  be  registered  in  the  brain, 
the  registration  is  not  abridged  thereby,  for  every  distinct  sensation, 
feeling,  thought,  determination,  action  and  utterance  must  have  its 
separate  registry.  It  is  not  merely  the  verb  amo  and  its  grammatical 
forms,  but  all  the  separate  acts  of  repetition  by  which  I  learned  them 
in  childhood,  all  the  slips  of  memory  by  which  I  mistook  one  form  for 
another,  all  the  feelings  pleasant  or  otherwise  attendant  on  the  task,  and 
all  the  separate  notices  of  the  word  in  reading  and  speaking.  Consider 
what  an  immense  number  of  molecules  are  moving  in  any  one  mental  act, 
and  then  think  of  all  these  registered  physically  in  some  configuration  of 
them,  which  abides  undisturbed  while  thousands  of  new  and  complica- 
ted impressions  are  registered  every  hour  without  breaking  up  the  com- 
binations of  molecules  in  which  the  innumerable  previous  impressions 
are  permanently  and  distinctly  registered.  This  is  utterly  impossible 
in  consistency  with  the  conception  of  matter  and  energy  on  which  the 
physical  science  of  our  day  is  founded.  And  the  more  because  neither 
the  microscope  nor  any  other  means  of  scientific  observation  can  detect 
the  slightest  trace  of  this  registration.  It  is  fanciful  speculation  beyond 
the  sphere  of  observation  and  even  of  conceivability. 

4.  Closely  analogous  to  this  and  presenting  similar  difficulties  is 
the  physiological  theory  of  heredity.  Of  two  microscopic  germs  one 
develops  into  a  horse  and  another  into  an  animal  of  a  totally  different 
kind.  The  old  explanation,  which  regarded  the  acorn  as  containing 
a  miniature  oak,  and  that  as  containing  a  still  smaller  one  and  so  on 
through  germs  of  whole  generations  of  future  trees,  is  rejected  aa 
crude.  Yet  physiology  still  teaches  that  all  the  innumerable  quali- 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  PERSISTENCE  OF  FORCE.    445 

ties  of  the  animal  and  the  peculiarities  by  which  it  is  distinguished 
from  other  animals  are  strictly  present  in  the  germ.  If  evolution  is 
true,  this  microscopic  germ  has  also  registered  in  its  structure  the 
impressions  made  on  its  ancestors  for  innumerable  generations ;  and 
also  it  contains  gemmules  or  whatever  these  physical  characters  be 
called,  to  be  transmitted  to  innumerable  subsequent  generations.  And 
atavism  implies  the  further  difficulty  that  these  gemmules  may  pass 
latent  through  several  generations  and  in  a  succeeding  generation  be- 
come active  and  reproduce  the  ancestral  trait.  The  whole  variety  of 
properties  and  functions  of  the  full-grown  animal  and  its  posterity 
are  supposed  to  exist  in  the  peculiarities  of  structure  of  an  infinitesi- 
mal germ.  A  further  difficulty  is  that  the  effect  is  immeasurably 
greater  than  the  cause ;  one  acorn  produces  millions  of  oak  trees. 
There  must  be  something  besides  the  structure  of  the  germ  and  the 
force  which  manifests  itself  in  motion ;  something  which  cannot  be  ex- 
plained by  matter  and  force  as  commonly  apprehended  in  their  essential 
space-relations. 

Some  physiologists  attempt  to  escape  this  difficulty  by  supposing  a 
"  structureless  germ."  Analogous  is  Du  Bois-Reymond's  supposition 
of  "  a  primitive  substance  devoid  of  qualities ; "  but  a  substance  not 
merely  extra-sensible  or  beyond  the  reach  of  our  senses,  but  devoid  of 
all  qualities  which  in  their  nature  are  perceptible,  is  not  matter,  for  it 
does  not  occupy  space  and  is  not  contained  in  it.  It  is  a  common 
sophistry  and  a  common  self-deception  to  present  as  a  generalization 
what  in  fact  is  merely  calling  two  totally  unlike  things  by  the  same 
name.  The  result  is  a  mere  bridge  of  words  over  the  chasm  which 
separates  the  things.  And  thus  predicating  of  a  thing  what  is  incom- 
patible with  its  nature  the  words  become  meaningless ;  "  substance  with- 
out qualities"  is  as  real  nonsense  as  "yellow  virtue"  or  "a  pound  of 
joy."  Scientists  too  often  exemplify  this  sophistry  or  self-deception. 
In  not  a  few  of  the  speculations  connected  with  physical  science,  the 
idea  of  material  body  is  changed  by  ascribing  to  it  attributes  incom- 
patible with  its  essential  properties. 

V.  Since  mental  phenomena  cannot  be  correlated  and  reciprocally 
convertible  with  molecular  motion  under  the  law  of  the  persistence 
of  force,  there  remains  no  explanation  of  them  by  matter  and  its 
energy,  and  they  are  rightly  acknowledged  to  be  facts  entirely  beyond 
the  Sphere  of  physical  science.  They  must  either  remain  without 
scientific  explanation,  or  we  must  recognize,  as  legitimate  and  distinct 
from  physical  science,  the  science  of  mind. 

At  this  point  dogmatic  materialism,  which  affirms  that  nothing  exists 
but  matter  and  motor-force,  is  refuted ;  and  evolution  cannot  save  it ; 
for  since  mentality  is  not  convertible  with  motion,  the  mere  evolution 


446  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

of  matter  and  motor-force  cannot  have  originated  it.  Only  two  courses 
remain  open  to  those  who  deny  the  existence  of  spirit.  One  is  to  ac- 
cept both  the  phenomena  of  mind  and  those  of  matter  as  ultimate  facts ; 
to  regard  them  as  two  lines  of  action  parallel  in  a  pre-established  har- 
mony, having  no  identity,  or  similarity,  or  point  of  meeting,  a  parallel- 
ism which  we  accept  as  a  fact  but  cannot,  either  empirically  or  meta- 
physically account  for  or  explain.  But  it  is  impossible  for  the  human 
mind  to  rest  in  a  final  dualism  like  this.  By  the  necessity  of  its  con- 
stitution it  must  continue  its  search  till  it  can  think  of  the  all  in  the 
unity  of  a  rational  system.  Such  a  dualism  is  a  case  of  unstable  mental 
equilibrium  in  which  the  mind  cannot  persist. 

The  other  way  of  attempted  escape  is  by  assuming  the  existence  of 
some  substance  having  the  properties  of  both  mind  and  matter.  Its 
crudest  form  is  the  doctrine  that  atoms  may  be  endowed  with  sensa- 
tion. But  the  atomic  theory  gives  us  matter  in  its  strictest  and  most 
distinctive  sense ;  to  predicate  both  material  and  mental  phenomena  of 
atoms  is  to  predicate  of  them  properties  which  are  incompatible  and 
contradictory  and  so  to  change  the  significance  of  matter  and  to  use 
words  without  meaning.  And,  as  Lange  suggests,  such  a  theory,  could 
it  ever  be  carried  out,  might  end  in  dropping  the  atoms  and  their 
vibrations  altogether,  like  a  scaffolding  when  the  building  is  completed. 
Besides,  Monism  can  attain  its  synthesis  of  the  all  in  one  only  by  start- 
ing with  the  "  substantia  una  et  unica"  If  it  starts  with  atoms  it  has 
atoms  of  sixty-four  different  kinds,  which,  since  substance  is  known 
only  by  its  properties,  would  be  sixty-four  different  kinds  of  sub- 
stances ;  and  in  addition  to  these  there  is  the  ether.  Atomism  is  in- 
compatible with  Monism.  If,  with  Prof.  Bain,  we  suppose  the  matter 
which  we  perceive,  the  human  body  for  example,  to  be  "  one  substance 
with  two  sets  of  properties,  two  sides,  the  physical  and  the  mental — a 
double-faced  unity"*  we  have  the  same  difficulty ;  since  the  body  is 
composed  of  atoms  and  we  must  also  predicate  of  it  contradictory 
properties.  Thus  again  the  explanation  is  attempted  by  applying  the 
same  name  to  things  that  differ  and  so  using  words  without  significance. 
If  escape  from  the  dualism  is  attempted  by  the  pantheistic  supposition 
of  the  "  substantia  una  et  unica "  with  its  tw7o  attributes  of  extension 
and  unconscious  thought,  no  relief  is  gained. 

There  remains  only  the  agnosticism  of  Spencer.  The  phenomena 
both  of  mind  and  matter  must  be  referred  to  an  unknowable  power 
which  transcends  them  both,  and  of  which  both  mind  and  matter  are 
manifestations.  Yet  this  is  not  an  Unknowable,  for  Mr.  Spencer  desig- 
nates it  as  a  Power,  spelled  with  a  capital  P ;  he  says  it  is  omnipresent 

*  Mind  and  Body,  p.  196. 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  PERSISTENCE  OF  FORCE.    447 

and  underived,  and  therefore  we  necessarily  infer  that  it  must  be 
self-existent  and  eternal ;  and  it  is  "  manifested "  in  the  phenomena 
of  both  matter  and  mind.  This  so-called  unknowable  he  uses  as  a 
symbol,  like  an  algebraic  x,  by  which  he  comes  to  the  result  that 
thought  is  transformed  motion — a  result  which  science  rejects.  He 
says :  "  Those  modes  of  the  Unknowable  which  we  call  motion,  heat, 
light,  chemical  affinity,  etc.,  are  alike  transformed  into  each  other, 
and  into  those  modes  of  the  Unknowable  which  we  distinguish  as 
sensation,  emotion,  thought ;  these,  in  their  turn,  being  directly  re- 
transformable  into  their  original  shapes."*  Thus  the  Philosophy  of 
the  Unknowable  withdraws  into  the  covert  of  human  ignorance  and 
professes  to  perform  in  that  darkness  a  transformation  impossible  in 
the  light  of  knowledge. 

Therefore  it  is  evident  that,  while  physical  science  is  unable  to  cor- 
relate thought,  feeling  and  determination  with  motion  as  reciprocally 
convertible  under  the  law  of  the  persistence  of  force,  it  is  also  unable 
to  account  for  and  explain  the  phenomena  in  any  other  way. 

VI.  The  existence  of  spirit  accounts  for  and  explains  the  mental 
phenomena  and  avoids  the  difficulties  of  the  materialistic  assumption. 

1.  Natural  science,  as  we  have  seen,  finds  impassable  limits  in  two 
directions ;  it  cannot  account  for  and  explain  mental  phenomena,  and 
especially  the  facts  of  personality ;  and  on  the  principles  of  mechanism 
it  cannot  account  for  and  explain  the  phenomena  of  matter  and  force. 
We  find  two  spheres  of  reality,  the  objective  which  is  perceived  in 
sense,  and  the  subjective  which  is  the  mind  in  its  conscious  operations 
having  knowledge  of  the  objective.     Physical  science  can  explain  and 
account  for  neither  of  these  spheres  themselves  nor  their  reciprocal 
connection  and  action.     It  sees  their  parallelism  but  cannot  find  their 
point  of  meeting  and  interaction. 

2.  The  supposition  of  the  existence  of  spirit  enables  us  to  explain 
and  account  for  these  spheres,  and  to  bring  them   both  within   our 
knowledge  in  the  unity  of  a  system.     If  the  limits  of  the  empirical 
science  of  nature  are  the  limits  of  all  human  knowledge,   then  the 
human  mind  can  never  transcend  these  bounds.     It  finds  the  horizon 
of  the  knowable  very^near  the  eye.     But  the  foregoing  chapters  have 
demonstrated  that  man's  knowledge  is  not  limited  to  sense-perception, 
nor  its  objects  to  matter  and  motion,  nor  its  reflective  methods  to  the 
empirical.     Man  has  knowledge  of  himself  endowed  with  the  attri- 
butes of  personality ;  and  with  this  knowledge  he  can  pass  beyond  the 
limits  of  physical   science  and  its  empirical    methods.     If  man  is  a 
personal  spirit  acting  through  an  organized  body,  the  parallelism  of 

*  First  Principles  :  p.  280,  §  82. 


448  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

mental  phenomena  with  molecular  action  of  the  brain  is  explained  as 
the  manifestation  of  spirit  through  the  organization  with  which  it  is 
connected.  The  truth  that  the  absolute  and  ultimate  ground  of  the 
universe  is  Energizing  Reason  gives  us  the  conception  of  the  universe 
existing  as  an  ideal  eternal  in  the  Reason,  and  realized  by  the  energizing 
of  the  Reason  continuously  and  progressively  expressing  its  ideals  in 
finite  forms  under  the  limitations  of  space  and  time.  In  the  two  words 
Energizing  Reason  we  have  attained  intelligibly  the  synthesis  which 
Spencer  teaches  must  exist  in  the  Unknowable  Absolute  in  which  is 
the  source  alike  of  matter  and  of  mind,  and  which  Bain  seeks  to  find 
in  his  double-faced  substance  having  the  attributes  of  both  matter  and 
mind.  For  here  is  Reason  which  in  its  essence  is  Subject,  and  which 
eternally  knows  the  object  in  its  own  archetypal  ideals.  And  here  is 
Energizing  Reason ;  and  this  includes  the  Energy  which  reveals  itself 
continuously  and  progressively  in  the  universe,  and  the  Intelligence 
which  ever  directs  its  multitudinous  atoms  in  action  co-ordinated  and 
converging  on  what  we  can  think  only  as  a  prearranged  result.  And 
here  is  a  universe  of  matter  and  mind  synthesized  in  the  unity  of  a 
system  in  which  the  effusion  and  direction  of  energy  are  continuously 
and  progressively  realizing  rational  results ;  and  these  results  when  in- 
vestigated and  described  by  the  human  mind  are  found  to  give  astron- 
omy, chemistry  and  other  natural  sciences,  moral  systems  and  laws, 
aesthetic  ideals  and  culture,  great  civilizations,  and  the  lineaments  of 
God's  kingdom  of  righteousness  and  good-will  forming  itself  progress- 
ively amid  the  changes  and  confusions  of  human  life.  These  realities 
are  found  in  the  universe.  Matter  and  force  cannot  account  for  them  ; 
physical  science  with  its  empirical  methods  cannot  explain  them.  But 
the  existence  of  Energizing  Reason  as  the  Absolute  Ground  of  the 
universe  explains  and  accounts  for  all.  It  and  it  alone  gives  compre- 
hensive science,  in  its  three  stages,  Empirical,  Noetic  and  Theological, 
which  alone  is  able  to  recognize,  account  for  and  explain  all  the  facts 
which  we  observe  in  the  universe. 

3.  The  existence  of  personal  spirit  is  therefore  necessarily  assumed. 
If  the  facts  of  personality  and  of  the  broader  sphere  of  consciousness, 
and  their  relation  to  physical  phenomena  could  be  explained  by  matter 
and  force,  then  we  might  doubt  which  of  two  equally  sufficient  causes 
was  the  real  one.  But  since  confessedly  these  facts  cannot  be  accounted 
for  by  matter  and  are  accounted  for  by  spirit,  the  mind  in  accordance 
with  the  constituent  elements  of  its  own  rationality  must  believe  that 
spirit  exists.  So  Spencer  says  :  "  When  on  decomposing  certain  of  our 
feelings  we  find  them  formed  of  minute  shocks  succeeding  one  another 
with  different  rabidities  and  in  different  combinations ;  and  when  we 
conclude  that  all  our  feelings  are  probably  formed  of  such  units  of  con- 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  PERSISTENCE  OF  FORCE.    449 

sciousness  variously  combined,  we  are  still  obliged  to  conceive  this  unit 
of  consciousness  as  a  change  wrought  by  some  force  in  something.  No 
effort  of  imagination  enables  us  to  think  of  a  shock,  however  minute, 
except  as  undergone  by  an  entity.  We  are  compelled,  therefore,  to 
postulate  a  substance  of  Mind  which  is  affected,  before  we  can  think  of 
its  affections/'* 

Were  it,  then,  only  a  case  of  hypothesis  of  a  cause  of  observed  phe- 
nomena, as  we  postulate  an  ether  to  account  for  light,  the  hypothesis  of 
the  existence  of  spirit  would  be  fully  sustained.  So  says  Dr.  J.  R. 
Mayer,  in  the  Discourse  already  cited :  "  There  are  three  categories  of 
existence,  matter,  force  and  the  soul  or  the  spiritual  principle.  When 
once  we  have  succeeded  in  realizing  that  there  are  not  only  material  ob- 
jects, but  also  forces  ....  as  indestructible  as  the  substances  of  the 
chemist,  we  have  but  one  step  further  to  take,  and  that  perfectly  natural, 
to  recognize  and  admit  spiritual  existences." 

4.  In  self-consciousness  man  has  knowledge  of  himself  as  an  indi- 
vidual persisting  in  identity  and  endowed  with  the  attributes  of  per- 
sonality. Our  knowledge  of  our  own  personality  is  not  attained  by 
hypothetical  reasoning,  but  is  immediate  in  our  own  self-consciousness. 
Not  that  self-consciousness  answers  all  questions  as  to  the  constitution 
of  spirit,  whether  for  example  it  is  simple  or  complex,  but  it  does  give 
the  reality  of  the  personal,  individual,  ever  identical  self.  Thus  the 
knowledge  of  self  is  no  hypothesis,  nor  theory,  nor  mere  inference, 
but  is  immediate  knowledge  of  the  highest  certitude.  It  is  knowledge 
without  which  all  other  knowledge  is  disintegrated  and  disappears. 
For  if  I  do  not  know  myself  as  persisting  in  identity  I  cannot  know 
anything  that  is  past,  nor  apprehend  any  realities  in  a  unity  of 
thought.  The  materialistic  explanation  of  memory  and  of  the  unity 
of  consciousness  fails  in  the  total  failure  of  materialism  to  explain  any 
mental  phenomena. 

•").  An  objection  is  urged  that  the  existence  of  disembodied  spirit 
"  lies  wholly  outside  of  the  range  of  experience."f  So  far  as  the  objec- 
tion is  that  the  existence  of  spirit  disembodied  is  beyond  the  range  of 
our  experience,  it  is  not  pertinent  to  the  issue  before  us.  This  I  have 
already  shown.  On  the  one  hand,  if  finite  spirit  never  manifests  it- 
self except  through  some  material  medium,  this  does  not  invalidate 
our  position  that  a  spiritual  power  must  be  postulated  to  account  for 
the  known  facts  of  personality,  and  also  that  we  have  immediate  know- 
ledge of  such  spiritual  power  in  the  consciousness  of  self.  On  the  other 
hand,  to  account  for  facts  not  otherwise  accounted  for,  we  may  assume 
that  spirit,  such  as  is  thus  known  to  us  in  the  body,  may  exist,  with  all 

*  Psychology.    Vol.  II.,  p.  626,  §  272.  f  Prof.  Fiske :  Unseen  World,  p.  50. 

29 


450  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

its  essential  personal  attributes,  disembodied.  And  this  is  a  legitimate 
scientific  postulation,  precisely  like  that  of  physical  science  when,  to 
account  for  facts  of  matter  and  motion  perceived  by  the  senses,  it  pos- 
tulates atoms,  molecules  and  ethers  which  are  entirely  imperceptible 
and  in  that  sense  beyond  experience.  If  now  it  is  objected  that  dis- 
embodied spirit  is  beyond  experience  and  therefore  cannot  be  postulated 
in  an  hypothesis,  it  is  true  equally  and  in  the  same  sense  that  atoms, 
molecules  and  ethers  are  beyond  the  range  of  experience.  But  if  we 
look  further  we  see  that  neither  the  one  nor  the  other  is  beyond  the 
range  of  experience  in  such  sense  as  makes  the  postulation  illegitimate 
or  unscientific.  For,  in  the  latter  hypothesis,  the  atoms,  molecules 
and  ethers  are  supposed  to  retain  the  essential  properties  of  matter  as 
already  known  in  experience,  although  existing  in  forms  and  under 
conditions  of  which  we  have  not  had  experience.  And,  in  the  former, 
the  spirit  retains  the  essential  attributes  of  personality  as  already 
known  in  experience,  although  existing  under  conditions  of  which  we 
have  had  no  experience. 

6.  It  is  also  objected  that  mental  phenomena  must  be  resolved 
into  molecular  in  order  to  be  cognizable  by  science.  The  objec- 
tion, in  order  to  be  pertinent,  must  deny  that  consciousness  is  a 
source  of  knowledge.  It  must  affirm  that  the  existence  of  personal 
or  spiritual  being  is  beyond  the  range  of  experience ;  and  in  order  to 
make  this  assertion  good,  must  deny  that  consciousness  is  any  part  of 
our  experience. 

This  seems  to  be  the  position  taken,  not  by  materialists  alone,  but  by 
some  scientists  who  disclaim  materialism.  Matter  and  motion,  or  the 
energy  which  manifests  itself  in  motion,  constitute  the  objective  sphere 
of  knowledge.  These  alone  are  objects  of  science.  The  sphere  of  con- 
sciousness is  the  subjective.  This  is  either  explicitly  or  implicitly  ex- 
cluded from  science.  It  is  an  object  of  scientific  knowledge  only  so  far 
as  we  can  reduce  it  to  terms  of  matter  and  motion  through  the  molecu- 
lar action  of  the  brain.  But,  when  it  is  seen  that  consciousness  cannot 
be  identified  with  these,  it  is  abandoned  as  beyond  the  limits  of  science 
and  not  an  object  of  legitimate  scientific  investigation.  "  Only  when  we 
resolve  our  sensations  by  abstraction  into  those  simplest  elements  of  ex- 
tension in  space,  of  resistance,  and  of  movement  do  we  obtain  a  basis  for 
the  operations  of  science."  But  so  far  as  it  is  found  impossible  to  iden- 
tify self-consciousness  with  objective  reality,  it  is  excluded  from  science. 
.If  there  is  no  such  thing  as  self-consciousness  in  the  objective  sphere,  it 
is,  strictly  speaking  nothing.  "  Subjective  existence  is  not  the  true, 
proper  existence  with  which  alone  science  is  concerned."  It  is  substan- 
tially along  this  line  that  Du  Bois-Reymond  defines  "  the  limits  of  natu- 
ral science."  And  all  who  regard  natural  science  as  comprehending  all 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  PERSISTENCE  OF  FORCE.    451 

science  must  either  resolve  mental  phenomena  into  molecular  action  or 
else  exclude  them  entirely  from  scientific  knowledge. 

The  first  answer  to  the  objection  presented  in  this  form  is  that  it  falls 
back  upon  the  position  of  Comte,  who  affirms  that  consciousness  is  not  a 
source  of  scientific  knowledge.  This  has  been  found  too  narrow  a  basis 
for  science,  and  when  nakedly  stated  is  commonly  rejected  by  scientists. 
These  two  spheres  of  knowledge  are  presented  to  the  mind  in  one  and 
the  same  mental  act.  It  is  a  wholly  arbitrary  and  unreasonable  pro- 
ceeding to  accept  the  one  and  reject  the  other,  or  to  insist  that  mental 
phenomena  are  not  objects  of  science  until  they  can  be  presented  as 
objective  realities,  as  phenomena  of  matter  and  motion.  It  is  an  a  priori 
and  unscientific  declaration  of  what  it  is  possible  to  know,  instead  of  a 
docile  acceptance  and  investigation  of  facts  actually  presented  to  our 
knowledge.  So  Lange :  "  The  very  undertaking  to  construct  a  philo- 
sophical theory  of  things  exclusively  upon  the  physical  sciences  must  in 
these  days  be  described  as  a  philosophical  one-sidedness  of  the  worst 
kind."* 

A  second  answer  to  this  form  of  the  objection  is  that  of  the  two,  the 
subjective  knowledge  is,  if  any  distinction  is  to  be  made,  the  best  war- 
ranted knowledge.  The  remark  has  often  been  made  and  is  obviously 
true  that  if  we  must  choose  between  materialism  and  idealism,  between 
the  knowledge  of  matter  and  motion,  and  the  knowledge  of  mind  and 
conscious  thoughts  and  feelings,  the  latter  has  always  the  better  war- 
rant. A  person  or  spirit  may  have  its  "  objective "  within  himself  in 
his  own  thoughts,  character  or  ideals,  and  thus  can  complete  within 
himself  the  circuit  recognized  in  the  first  law  of  thought,  that  know- 
ledge implies  a  subject  knowing,  an  object  known,  and  the  know- 
ledge. Sensation  and  consciousness  are  immediate,  but  the  knowledge 
of  molecular  movement  is  mediate  through  thought,  "triply  ideal," 
as  Spencer  describes  the  molecule.  Accordingly  Mr.  Spencer  says: 
"  It  may  be  as  well  to  say  here  once  for  all,  that  were  we  compelled  to 
choose  between  the  alternatives  of  translating  mental  phenomena  into 
physical  phenomena,  or  of  translating  physical  phenomena  into  mental 
phenomena,  the  latter  alternative  would  seem  the  more  acceptable  of 
the  two."  So  Prof.  Fiske :  "  While  the  Inscrutable  Power  manifested 
in  the  world  of  phenomena  cannot  possibly  be  regarded  as  quasi- 
physical  in  its  nature,  it  may  nevertheless  be  possibly  regarded  as 
quasi-psychical.  .  .  .  We  may  say  that  God  is  Spirit,  though  we  may 
not  say,  in  the  materialistic  sense,  that  God  is  Force."f 

A  third  answer  is  that  the  knowledge  of  the  objective  is  itself  sub- 

*Hist.  Materialism.     Transl.  II.  302. 

f  Cosmic  Philosophy.     Vol.  II.,  pp.  448,  449. 


452  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

jective;  and  that  the  knowledge  of  the  objective  disappears  if  the 
knowledge  of  the  subjective  is  not  real.  This  very  word  objective  im- 
plies as  much,  since  matter  and  motion  are  called  objective  because 
they  are  objects  of  perception  and  thought.  What  do  we  know  of 
atoms,  if  we  take  the  materialistic  explanation  of  thought,  except  as 
the  remains  of  faded  sensations  by  which  the  mind  has  formed  a  con- 
cept of  them  ?  The  last  result  of  physical  science  in  knowing  the  objec- 
tive is  in  finding  bulk,  weight,  distance,  velocity  and  law  of  movement 
mathematically  expressed.  But  mathematical  measurements  are  noth- 
ing but  pure  forms  of  mind.  The  Mecanique  Celeste  of  Laplace  is 
a  description  of  the  universe,  and  that  description  is  in  mathematical 
forms  created  solely  by  the  mind.  Is  it  therefore  an  anthropomorphic 
description  of  the  universe,  revealing  only  the  subjective,  and  unscien- 
tific ?  Plainly  if  the  subjective  consciousness  and  personality  are  ex- 
cluded from  scientific  knowledge,  the  phenomena  of  matter  and  motion 
are  excluded  also. 

We  may  find  a  further  answer  to  the  objection  in  the  analogy  of 
matter  and  force.  The  phenomena  of  matter  as  existing  in  and  occu- 
pying space  and  the  phenomena  of  motion  manifesting  force,  are 
inseparable ;  yet  like  those  of  mind  and  matter  they  are  parallel.  We 
find  that  force  cannot  be  accounted  for  as  caused  by  matter ;  we  have 
seen  the  insuperable  difficulties  in  the  supposition  that  force  is  an  in- 
herent property  of  matter,  that  matter  by  attraction  or  repulsion  is 
continually  effusing  energy  into  the  universe  without  expenditure  or 
resupply.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  dynamic  theory  of  matter  is 
conceivably  true,  and  it  is  possible  to  account  for  matter  by  force. 

Looking  now  at  the  parallelism  of  the  relation  of  mind  to  matter 
and  force  with  the  relation  of  force  to  matter,  we  find  that  mental  phe- 
nomena cannot  be  identified  with  or  explained  by  matter  and  force, 
but  that  matter  and  force  may  be  explained  by  mind.  For  our  idea  of 
motion  and  force  is  derived  from  the  action  of  our  own  wills  and  the 
motion  caused  by  it.  Attraction  and  repulsion  are  only  our  own  pull 
and  push  transferred  to  the  movements  of  nature.  And  the  tendency 
to  the  dynamic  explanation  of  the  universe  is  a  tendency  to  find  its 
explanation  in  mind,  in  an  Energizing  Reason,  continuously  the  efficient 
and  the  directive  cause  of  the  universe  and  its  ongoing. 

Spirit  and  its  phenomena,  therefore,  are.  not  beyond  the  range  of 
experience,  but  are  the  deepest  realities  of  experience,  without  which 
the  objective  could  never  be  an  object  of  experience  or  knowledge. 

VII.  The  theory  of  the  correlation  of  the  facts  of  personality  with 
molecular  motion  not  only  does  not  account  for  these  facts  but  is  entirely 
incompatible  with  them  in  their  essential  significance.  For  if  this 
theory  were  true  man  would  be  merely  a  natural  product  and  all  his 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  PERSISTENCE  OF  FORCE.    453 

acts  would  be  necessitated  in  the  fixed  course  of  nature,  like  the  falling 
of  stones,  the  flowing  of  water,  and  the  consuming  of  fuel  by  fire. 
Rational  free-will  would  be  impossible,  and  without  free-will  moral  ob- 
ligation and  responsibility,  moral  law  and  government,  all  that  belongs 
to  a  rational  and  moral  system,  would  also  be  impossible.  We  should 
be  driven  to  the  conclusions  reached  by  Mr.  Atkinson  and  Miss  Mar- 
tineau  in  their  "  Letters  on  the  Laws  of  Man's  Nature  and  Develop- 
ment" :  "  Instinct,  passion,  thought  are  effects  of  organized  substances." 
"All  causes  are  material  causes."  "  In  material  conditions  I  find  the 
origin  of  all  religions,  all  philosophies,  all  opinions,  all  virtues  and 
spiritual  conditions  and  influences,  in  the  same  manner  that  I  find  the 
origin  of  all  diseases  and  of  all  insanities  in  material  conditions  and 
causes."  "  I  am  what  I  am,  a  creature  of  necessity ;  I  claim  neither 
merit  nor  demerit."  "  I  am  as  completely  the  result  of  my  nature  and 
impelled  to  do  what  I  do,  as  the  needle  to  point  to  the  north  or  the 
puppet  to  move  according  as  the  string  is  pulled."  "  I  cannot  alter  my 
will  or  be  other  than  what  I  am,  and  I  cannot  deserve  either  reward  or 
punishment." 

But  the  facts  that  I  am  a  rational  free-agent  and  the  subject  of 
moral  obligation  and  responsibility,  and  am  under  moral  law  and 
government,  are  facts  of  the  highest  certitude.  If  any  proposed 
scientific  theory  is  inconsistent  with  them,  the  inference  is  that  the 
theory  is  unscientific  and  false  because  it  is  not  consistent  with  known 
facts,  not  that  the  facts  are  unreal  because  they  are  inconsistent  with 
the  theory.  These  incontrovertible  facts  demonstrate  the  existence 
in  man  of  a  power  other  than  matter  and  force. 

In  a  cemetery  near  Stirling  Castle,  in  Scotland,  is  a  monument  to 
two  girls  who,  in  the  time  of  persecution,  were  tied  at  low  water  mark 
to  be  drowned  by  the  rising  tide  if  they  did  not  renounce  their  relig- 
ious convictions.  For  hours  they  watched  the  slowly  rising  waters, 
knowing  a  word  would  save  them,  but  that  word  conscience  within 
them  forbade  them  to  utter.  Something  within  them  above  the  body 
and  its  movements  freely  left  the  body  to  die  rather  than  be  false  to 
principle,  to  duty,  and  to  God.  Many  Christian  martyrs  have  endured 
imprisonment  and  repeated  torture  on  the  rack  before  they  suffered 
death.  In  the  darkness,  dampness  and  filth  of  a  dungeon  they  have 
looked  forward  to  the  torture,  knowing  they  could,  escape  it  if  they 
would  recant.  They  have  been  tortured  as  long  and  as  much  as 
their  tormentors  could  inflict  without  killing  them,  and  have  then 
been  remanded  to  their  dungeon ;  and  when  sufficiently  recovered 
tortured  again  and  then  again,  and  last  they  have  been  burned  at 
the  stake.  All  the  preparatory  imprisonments  and  tortures  were 
fitted  to  destroy  the  nervous '  energy,  to  prostrate  the  strength,  and 


454  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

break  down  the  resolution.  Were  there  nothing  concerned  but  mole- 
cular motions  of  the  brain  they  would  have  grown  feeble  and  given 
way.  But  there  is  a  spirit  in  man  which  freely  consigns  the  body  to 
suffering  and  death  rather  than  turn  from  truth  and  right,  and 
which  remains  unweakened  in  its  purpose  to  the  last  moment  of  con- 
sciousness as  all  the  bodily  powers  decay. 

If  it  were  possible  for  the  phenomena  of  personality  to  be  correlated 
with  motion  under  the  law  of  the  persistence  of  force,  then  the  amount 
of  force  liberated  by  thinking  would  be  inconceivably  great.  Science 
recognizes  grades  of  force.  A  unit  of  electric  or  magnetic  force  is 
equal  to  many  units  of  the  force  of  gravity.  A  common  small  magnet 
lifts  iron  filings ;  to  enable  it  to  do  the  same  by  gravitation-attraction, 
its  density  would  have  to  be  increased  till  it  weighed  at  least  a  billion 
of  pounds.  Chemical  affinity  is  supposed  to  be  a  force  of  a  still  higher 
grade.  Faraday  calculated  that  the  force  expended  in  decomposing  a 
drop  of  water  is  more  than  that  of  the  electricity  which  would  charge 
a  thunder-cloud.  The  force  expended  in  producing  nine  pounds  of 
water  by  the  combination  of  oxygen  and  hydrogen  is  equal  to  that  of 
a  ton  weight  falling  22,230  feet.  Prof.  Tyndall  says :  "  I  have  seen 
the  wild  stone  avalanches  of  the  Alps,  which  smoke  and  thunder  down 
the  declivities  with  a  vehemence  almost  sufficient  to  stun  the  observer. 
I  have  also  seen  snow-flakes  descending  so  softly  as  not  to  hurt  the 
fragile  spangles  of  which  they  were  composed.  Yet  to  produce  from 
aqueous  vapor  a  quantity  of  that  tender  material  which  a  child  could 
carry,  demands  an  exertion  of  energy  competent  to  gather  up  the  shat- 
tered blocks  of  the  largest  stone  avalanche  I  have  ever  seen  and  pitch 
them  to  twice  the  height  from  which  they  fell."  Vital  force  must  be  of 
a  still  higher  order ;  for  the  action  of  chemical  affinity  is  suspended 
during  life  but  asserts  itself  in  the  decomposition  of  the  tissues  so  soon 
as  life  ceases.  .  The  force  manifested  in  rational  free-will  would  be 
still  higher.  Every  rational  free  act  would  therefore  give  forth  into 
the  universe  an  immeasurable  amount  of  force  surpassing  that  of  a 
multitude  of  thunder-storms.  And  if  the  theory  of  the  correlation  of 
personal  action  with  molecular  motion  and  its  re-transformation  into 
motion  were  true,  then  the  prayers  of  Christian  people  in  their  assem- 
blies every  Sunday  all  the  world  over  would  actually  give  out  into 
the  universe  an  energy  that  would  be  immense.  This  sets  in  a 
striking  light  the  impossibility  of  the  correlation  of  personal  acts  of 
rational  free-will  with  motion ;  and  at  the  same  time  shows  that  the 
supposition,  if  true,  would  involve  consequences  never  dreamed  of  by 
the  materialist. 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM   EVOLUTION.  455 


2  SO.    Third  Materialistic  Objection  :  from  the  Theory  of 

Evolution. 

• 

A  third  materialistic  objection  to  the  existence  of  personal  or  spiritual 
beings  is,  that  all  that  exists  has  been  evolved  from  primordial  homo- 
geneous stuff  under  the  laws  of  matter,  force  and  motion ;  that  thus 
personality  and  spirit  are  excluded  from  the  universe  and  have  no 
existence  either  in  man  or  God. 

I.   We  must  first  distinguish  the  materialistic  theory  of  evolution 
from  the  scientific.     The  objection  assumes  that  this  theory  in  its  essence 
includes  materialism  ;  and  this  is  the  prevalent  impression.     This  is  not 
surprising ;  for  some  of  its  most  widely  known  advocates  are  materialists 
or  agnostics,  and  present  the  theory  as  essentially  materialistic.     But  so 
far  as  it  is  a  legitimate  theory  of  empirical  science  it  must  declare  only 
how  nature  goes  on,  not  how  it  originated  and  what  is  its  ultimate 
ground.     And  so  its  most  judicious  advocates  present  it.     Thus  pre- 
sented it  is  the  theory  that  the  existing  arrangement  of  the  physical 
universe  is  the  result  of  a  continuous  and  progressive  evolution  from 
simpler  and  lower  to  more  complicated  and  higher   conditions  and 
forms;  and  it  is  an  attempt  to  declare  the  laws  in  accordance  with  which 
the  evolution  goes  on.     It  results  from  the  efforts  of  science  to  find  out 
how  nature  has  been  going  on  in  the  past  and  thus  to  extend  knowledge 
of  physical  processes  and  laws  through  time  as  the  discovery  of  the  law 
of  gravitation  extended  it  through  space.     From  ancient  times  in  the 
prosecution  of  such  inquiries  various   suggestions  in  the  direction  of 
evolution  have  at  different  periods  been  made.     The  present  theory  is 
an  attempt  with  a  larger  knowledge  of  nature  to  give  a  more  complete 
answer  to  these  inquiries.      The  investigation  is   perfectly  legitimate 
within  the  sphere  of  empirical  science.    Neither  philosophy  nor  theology 
has  anything  to  fear  from  any  facts  which  it  may  discover  or  any  in- 
variable sequences  or  laws  of  nature  which  it  may  establish.     A  law  of 
evolution,  legitimate  within  the  sphere  of  empirical  science,  would  be 
consistent  with  personality,  would  extend  our  knowledge  of  law  and 
order  in  nature  through  time  as  the  discovery  of  the  law  of  gravitation 
extended  it  through  space,  and  would  favor  the  teleological  view  of 
nature  by  presenting  to  us  the  material  universe  as  a  whole  in  its  entire 
evolution  progressively  realizing  a  rational  ideal  and  end.     It  would  be 
in  general  accord  with  the  observed  fact  of  the  appearance  of  higher 
and  higher  orders  of  organic  beings  in  the  successive  geological  periods ; 
with  the  philosophical  principle  that  the  manifestation  of  the  absolute 
or  infinite  in  the  finite  must  be  progressive  and  at  any  point  of  time  in- 
complete ;  with  the  theological  truth  that  the  historical  revelation  of 
God  has  been  progressive  according  to  the  capacity  of  an  age  to  receive 


456  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

it ;  and  with  Christ's  teaching  that  the  advancement  of  his  kingdom 
must  be  progressive  after  the  analogy  of  organic  growth,  first  the  blade, 
then  the  ear,  after  that  the  full  corn  in  the  ear. 

Mr.  Spencer's  generalization  is  that  the  development  and  growth  of  MI 
organic  germ  present  the  type  and  law  of  the  evolution  of  the  universe  : 
"  this  law  of  organic  evolution  is  the  law  of  all  evolution."*  In  incubu- 
tion  the  homogeneous  yelk  is  first  diversified  into  lines  and  parts  and 
then  these  are  united  in  the  organic  unity  of  the  chicken.  This,  then, 
according  to  Spencer,  is  the  type  of  the  evolution  of  the  universe :  the 
homogeneous  passing  into  diversity  and  thence  into  a  unity  of  the  com- 
plex. We  have  seen  that  thought  consists  of  apprehension,  differentia- 
tion and  integration.  It  may  be  that  this  is  the  necessary  law  of 
thought  because  it  is  also  the  law  of  the  constitution  of  things  which 
are  the  objects  of  thought.  If  this  is  the  law  according  to  which 
the  material  universe  has  come  to  its  present  arrangement,  still  it 
declares  only  the  uniform  factual  sequence  from  homogeneousness 
through  diversity  to  a  larger  and  complex  unity,  and  so  on  through 
multiplying  diversities  and  unities  forever.  If  this  is  the  law  of  the 
progress  and  development  of  the  individual  man,  still  it  declares  only 
the  uniform  factual  sequence  from  the  simplicity  of  infancy  through 
the  development  of  diverse  powers  and  susceptibilities  to  the  realiza- 
tion of  unity  in  the  rational  control  and  direction  of  all  these  diverse 
energies  in  the  free  personality  of  the  man.  If  this  is  the  law  of  the 
formation  of  moral  character,  still  it  declares  only  the  factual  sequence 
from  the  simplicity  and  innocence  of  infancy  through  the  development 
of  many  impulses,  desires,  affections  and  energies,  involving  many 
temptations  and  inward  conflicts,  to  the  unity  of  all  the  diversity  in 
the  life  of  love.  If  this  is  the  law  of  the  development  of  civilization 
and  the  progress  of  society,  still  it  declares  only  the  factual  sequence 
from  the  comparative  simplicity  of  savagery  through  the  development 
of  the  many-sidedness  of  man  as  to  power  and  capacity,  as  to  Avauts 
and  the  power  of  satisfying  them,  to  the  unity  of  a  civilized  commu- 
nity living  peacefully  under  law.  If  this  is  the  law  of  the  organiza- 
tion of  political  society,  still  it  only  declares  the  uniform  factual  sequence 
from  the  simplicity  of  the  family  and  of  patriarchal  government  through 
many  diversities  and  conflicts  and  disintegrations  to  the  e  pluribus  unum 
of  the  government  of  the  United  States  in  which  the  greatest  complex- 
ity and  freedom  are  united  in  the  firmest  union.  In  all  these  cases 
we  simply  affirm  the  fact  as  to  how  the  world  goes  on ;  we  affirm 
nothing  as  to  how  it  began  or  how  it  is  sustained  and  directed,  or  what 
is  the  ultimate  ground  on  which  in  all  its  changes  it  rests ;  nothing 

*  First  Principles,  §  43,  p.  148. 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  EVOLUTION.  457 

which  denies  the  personality  of  man  or  the  existence  and  immanent 
action  of  God.  And  if  the  progress  of  man  as  an  individual  and  of 
society  is  always  accordant  with  this  law,  the  fact  is  no  more  incom- 
patible with  his  free  personality  and  the  immanent  presence  of  God 
than  are  the  facts  that  his  motions  are  limited  by  the  natural  laws 
of  gravitation  and  his  thinking  regulated  by  the  rational  principle 
that  t  _inning  or  change  of  existence  must  have  a  cause.  The 

point  made  by  the  theist  is  not  that  the  law  of  gravitation,  of  the  per- 
sistence of  force,  of  evolution,  or  any  other  law  of  nature  fails  to  de- 
clare a  uniform  factual  sequence  in  nature,  but  that  every  one  of  them 
brings  the  investigator  face  to  face  with  facts  which  the  law  is  incom- 
:  to  account  for  or  explain,  and  thus  reveals  in  all  the  operations 
of  nature  a  power  which  transcends  nature.  And  it  is  not  merely 
that  there  must  be  a  power  above  nature  to  account  for  its  origin,  but 
that  in  every  iuteraction  and  process  of  nature  according  to  its  laws, 
the  necessity  and  reality  of  a  power  above  nature  are  revealed. 

I  anticipate  that  the  science  of  the  physical  universe  is  to  be  estab- 
lished in  the  line  of  thought  which  the  theory  of  evolution  opens  and 
in  accordance  with  its  general  idea.  No  interest  of  theology  prejudices 
me  against  it ;  for  I  see  no  conflict  between  such  a  theory  within  the 
legitimate  limits  of  empirical  science  and  theology ;  on  the  contrary, 
at  various  points  I  find  it  helpful  in  removing  difficulties  and  elucidat- 
ing and  vindicating  theological  truth.  The  objections  against  theism 
which  it  has  occasioned  are  not  from  evolution  as  a  scientific  law  of 
nature,  but  from  the  materialism  of  which  it  has  been  made  the 
vehicle. 

II.  Although  the  theory  of  evolution  has  already  been  found  to 
accord  with  many  facts  and  bring  them  into  unity,  and  thus  has 
acquired  probability,  I  cannot  think  that  as  yet  it  has  been  either 
apprehended  in  its  full  significance  or  scientifically  established.  So 
Prof.  Le  Conte  says :  "  I  do  not  agree  with  those  who  seem  to  think 
that  we  already  know  all,  or  at  least  the  most  important  factors  of  evolu- 
tion. On  the  contrary,  I  am  quite  sure  that  the  most  fundamental 
factors  are  still  unknown;  that  there  are  more  and  greater  factors 
than  are  yet  '  dreamed  of  in  our  philosophy.'  But  evolution  of  some 
kind  and  according  to  some  law  which  we  yet  imperfectly  understand, 
evolution  affecting  alike  every  realm  of  nature,  a  universal  law  of  evo- 
lution, is,  I  believe,  a  fact  which  is  rapidly  approaching  uni 
recognition."* 

1.  The  law  of  evolution  in  some  sense  conditions  all  other  la 
nature.     As  declaring  how  nature  has  been  going  on  through  all  time 

*  Princeton  Review,  1881,  p.  159. 


458  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS   OF  THEISM. 

it  in  some  sense  conditions  all  the  actions  and  processes  of  nature  in 
space.  The  forces  of  nature  acting  according  to  their  laws  in  space 
have  been  acting  thus  through  all  time ;  and  by  these  forces  and  in 
accordance  with  these  laws  the  evolution  has  been  going  on.  The 
theory  of  evolution  must,  therefore,  take  up  into  itself  all  these  forces 
and  laws  and  declare  to  us  in  scientific  form  the  law  of  all  laws,  in 
accordance  with  which  all  the  forces  of  nature  acting  according  to 
their  subordinate  laws  in  producing  specific  effects,  have  yet  been  act- 
ing in  concert  through  all  time  realizing  an  immense  and  most  compli- 
cated ideal  in  the  slow  but  continuously  progressive  evolution  of  nebulous 
matter  into  a  Cosmos.  It  is  not  surprising  that  the  human  mind  has  not 
scientifically  established  such  a  law  as  this,  nor  even  clearly  and  defi- 
nitely enunciated  it.  Even  if  the  theory  of  evolution  is  a  grand  insight 
of  genius,  it  is  not  surprising,  especially  considering  how  recently  it 
was  announced,  that  it  remains  neither  adequately  formulated  nor 
proved ;  and  that  only  fragments,  which  may  ultimately  find  place  in 
a  comprehensive  theory,  seem  to  be  assuming  the  definiteness  and  cer- 
tainty of  scientific  facts. 

2.  The  theory  of  evolution  includes  four  subordinate  theories,  each 
of  which  must  be  scientifically  established  before  the  theory  of  evolu- 
tion can  be  accepted  in  its  entireness  as  a  scientific  law  of  nature.  It 
cannot  be  affirmed  that  all  of  them  are  thus  established.  They  are  the 
following  :  a  nebular  hypothesis  in  some  form  ;  the  persistence  of  force ; 
Abiogenesis  or  spontaneous  generation ;  the  Darwinian  theory  of  the 
development  of  species. 

The  nebular  hypothesis  as  commonly  applied  to  our  solar  system 
assumes  that  all  the  matter  in  it  was  in  its  beginning  nebulous  and 
diffused  through  the  space  which  the  system  now  occupies.  This 
theory  is  now  generally  accepted  by  astronomers  not  merely  as  a  con- 
venient working  hypothesis,  but  as  in  all  probability  the  true  history 
of  the  formation  of  the  solar  system.  But  against  this  the  weighty 
objection  is  urged  that  the  actual  velocities  of  the  rotations  and 
revolutions  of  the  sun  and  its  planets  are  vastly  greater  than  those 
necessarily  deduced  from  the  hypothesis,  and  that  various  other  known 
astronomical  facts  are  incompatible  with  it.  J.  B.  Stallo  says :  "  The 
cumulation  of  difficulties  presented  by  the  nebular  hypothesis  has  be- 
come so  great  and  is  beginning  to  be  so  extensively  realized,  as  to  de- 
velop a  tendency  to  modify  or  supplant  it  by  another  hypothesis,  which 
may  be  called  the  hypothesis  of  meteoric  agglomeration."* 

The  nebular  hypothesis  of  Laplace  was  limited  to  our  solar  system. 
This  of  course  is  too  narrow  for  a  cosmical  theory,  which  must  extend 

*  The  Concepts  and  Theories  of  Modern  Physics:  pp.  277-286. 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  EVOLUTION.  459 

to  all  suns  and  systems  and  derive  all  their  nebulae  from  an  all-com- 
prehending homogeneous  *  tuff.  The  latter  was  the  hypothesis  of  Kant 
and  is  accepted  by  Spencer,  Haeckel  and  other  leading  evolutionists. 
Mr.  Spencer  says :  "  Evolution  is  a  change  from  an  indefinite,  incoherent 
homogeneity  to  a  definite,  coherent  heterogeneity,  through  continuous  dif- 
ferentiations and  integrations."  He  explains  that  in  it  the  elemental 
unchangeable  units  of  various  orders  are  "so  unifcrmly  dispersed 
among  each  other  that  any  portion  of  the  mass  shall  be  like  any  other 
portion  in  its  sensible  properties."*  This  homogeneous  stuff  is  limited 
and  definite  in  quantity,  is  in  unstable  equilibrium,  and  when  change 
begins  the  forces  become  multiform  and  multiply  the  changes.  He 
sometimes  describes  the  evolution  as  "  a  redistribution  of  matter  and 
force,"  implying  that  the  evolution  is  only  a  rearrangement  of  the 
diversified  elements  and  potencies  which  were  originally  blended  in  the 
homogeneous. 

The  observed  existence  of  nebulae  gives  support  to  some  theory  like 
this,  sufficient  at  least  to  justify  the  assumption  of  the  nebulous  matter 
as  what  Newton  calls  a  vera  causa,  and  to  justify  the  hypothesis  as  a 
legitimate  scientific  hypothesis  and  not  a  mere  vagary  of  the  fancy. 
But  embracing  as  it  does  the  universe  in  its  entire  history  from  the 
beginning,  it  cannot  admit  of  complete  verification  in  the  present  stage 
of  astronomical  knowledge,  and  inevitably  confronts  us  with  many 
difficulties.  For  example,  since  the  assumed  nebulous  matter,  limited 
and  definite,  comprises  the  whole  physical  universe,  and  is  broken  up 
into  suns  and  systems  by  cooling,  the  force  dissipated  in  the  cooling 
passes  out  of  the  universe  into  absolutely  empty  space,  And  since  the 
nebulous  matter  of  the  universe  is  broken  up  into  suns  and  worlds, 
why  is  there  no  change  in  the  ether,  which  seems  more  than  anything 
the  very  "thing  in  itself"  of  matter ?f  And  since  this  nebula  is  the 
entire  physical  universe  and  is  in  equilibrium  and  therefore  motionless, 
no  force  within  it  can  originate  the  motion  and  no  finite  force  from 
without  can  ever  be  incident  upon  it  and  cause  any  part  of  it  to  move. 
An  equilibrium  of  the  whole  universe  cannot  be  unstable  but  must  be 
immovable  forever.  Of  Abiogenesis  Mr.  Huxley  says :  "At  the  present 
moment  there  is  not  a  shadow  of  direct  evidence  that  abiogenesis  does 
take  place  or  has  taken  place  within  the  period  during  which  the  exist- 
ence of  the  globe  is  recorded.";); 

Darwin's  theory  of  the  development  of  species,  notwithstanding  the 
facts  and  arguments  accumulated  in  its  support,  seems  yet  to  lack 

*  First  Principles,  $  57,  pp.  216,  235,  and  Chaps,  xii.  and  xiii. 
f  So  Clifford  says  that  in  cooling  down  into  one  motionless  mass  the  universe  "  would 
send  out  waves  of  heat  through  a  perfectly  empty  ether."     Lectures,  etc.,  I.  221. 
J  Encyc.  Brit.     9th  Ed.,  Art.  Biology,  p.  689. 


460  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

evidence  at  some  points,  and  to  be  confronted  with  facts  which  it  does 
not  take  up  and  explain.  Prof.  Gray  says :  "  The  essential  types  of 
our  own  actual  flora  are  marked  in  the  cretaceous  period  and  have 
come  to  us  without  notable  changes  through  the  tertiary  formation  of 
our  continent."*  And  Virchow,  speaking  of  the  evolution  of  man, 
says :  "  The  old  troglodytes,  pile- villagers,  and  bog-people  prove  to  be 
quite  a  respectable  society.  They  have  heads  so  large  that  many  a 
living  people  would  be  only  too  happy  to  possess  them.  .  .  .  We 
must  really  acknowledge  that  there  is  a  complete  absence  of  any  fossil 
type  of  a  lower  stage  in  the  development  of  man.  Nay,  if  we  gather 
together  all  the  fossil  men  hitherto  found  and  put  them  parallel  with 
those  of  the  present  time,  we  can  decidedly  pronounce  that  there  are 
among  living  men  a  much  greater  proportion  of  individuals  who  show 
a  relatively  inferior  type  than  there  are  among  the  fossils  known  up  to 
this  time.  .  .  .  Every  positive  progress  which  we  have  made  in  the 
region  of  prehistoric  anthropology  has  removed  us  further  from  the 
demonstration  of  this  theory."f  The  variations  produced  by  domes- 
tication disclose  a  certain  susceptibility  to  variation,  but  the  variation 
itself  is  the  result  of  man's  selection,  not  of  natural  selection.  The 
argument  from  embryology,  however  striking,  is  nevertheless  merely 
an  argument  from  analogy.  The  question  at .  issue  is  a  question  of 
Phylogeny,  that  is,  of  the  evolution  or  origin  of  organic  tribes  or 
species ;  the  facts  observed  are  facts  of  Ontogeny,  that  is,  of  the  evo- 
lution of  an  individual  organism  from  its  germ.  The  argument  is 
merely  by  analogy  that  facts  not  observed  in  the  evolution  of  species 
must  be  analogous  to  facts  observed  in  the  development  of  a  germ  into 
an  individual  animal.  If  we  add  the  taxonomic  series,  the  analogy 
is  exhausted,  with  this  result :  living  organisms  are  not  only  classified 
by  resemblance,  but  also  the  classes  or  specieo  arrange  themselves  in 
a  gradation  from  lower  to  higher ;  the  order  of  the  appearance  of  the 
species  in  time  has  a  general  correspondence  with  the  order  of  their 
gradation  from  lower  to  higher ;  and  the  development  of  the  human 
embryo  in  its  successive  stages  has  a  striking  correspondence  with  the 
same  gradation.  But  this  analogy  is  far  from  proving  that  living  or- 
ganisms have  been  developed  through  all  gradations  up  to  man  solely 
by  the  necessary  action  of  matter  and  motor-force. 

There  are  also  facts  which  seem  to  contradict  the  theory,  such  as  the 
sterility  of  hybrids,  degeneracy,  atavism,  the  tendency  of  domesticated 
varieties  to  return  to  the  primitive  type,  the  great  geological  breaks  in 
the  course  of  past  life  and  the  abrupt  appearance  of  multitudes  of  new 

*  Address  before  Am.  Scientific  Association,  1872. 

f  Freedom  of  Science  in  the  Modern  State:  A  Discourse  before  the  German  Asso- 
ciation of  Naturalists  and  Physicians  ;  Munich,  1878. 


MATERIALISTIC   OBJECTION   FROM   EVOLUTION.  461 

species.  Astronomers  profess  to  prove  from  data  drawn  from  the 
nebular  hypothesis  that  the  time  claimed  as  necessary  for  the  evolu- 
tion far  exceeds  any  period  during  which  it  is  possible  that  the  earth 
can  have  existed  as  a  globe  capable  of  sustaining  any  organic  life. 
Investigations  in  other  spheres  of  knowledge  seem  to  prove  similar 
overestimates  in  the  later  periods  of  development.  Quatrefages  says : 
"  Under  the  influence  of  Darwinian  prejudices,  men  have  begun  to 
handle  time  with  a  strange  laxity,  and  it  has  been  affirmed  that  mil- 
lions of  years  separate  us  from  the  glacial  times.  The  deposits  of  silt 
in  the  lake  of  Geneva  show  that  these  times  terminated  less  than 
100.000  years  ago."*  The  theory  if  true  would  be  true  of  different 
species  as  well  as  of  different  individuals ;  the  stronger  species  would 
exterminate  the  weaker,  and  all  organic  beings  be  brought  into  one 
species.  The  theory  cannot  account  for  the  existence  of  sex,  nor  for 
the  formation  of  new  organs  of  any  kind.  As  Dr.  Carpenter  says,  in 
an  article  on  "Mind  and  Will  in  Nature":  "Natural  selection  or  the 
survival  of  the  fittest  can  do  nothing  else  than  perpetuate,  among 
varietal  forms  already  existing,  those  which  best  suit  the  external  con- 
ditions of  their  existence ;  and  the  scientific  question  for  the  biologist 
is,  what  is  the  cause  of  departure  from  the  uniformity  of  type  ordinarily 
transmitted  by  heredity  ....  and  under  what  conditions  does  that 
cause  operate  ? "  Before  the  first  mammal  was  born  there  must  have 
been  a  mammary  gland  in  the  mother  to  provide  its  food,  and  the  young 
one  must  at  birth  have  had  the  instinct  to  suck  or  it  would  perish.  How 
could  natural  selection  in  non-mammals  develop  either  the  organ  in  the 
former  or  the  instinct  in  the  latter?  An  animal  in  the  process  of 
transition  from  one  type  of  organism  to  another,  would  seem  to  be  in- 
ferior to  the  perfect  animals  of  either,  and  on  the  principle  of  the  sur- 
vival of  the  fittest,  would  perish. 

In  studying  the  writings  of  evolutionists  one  cannot  easily  avoid  the 
impression  that  the  enthusiasm  and  in  some  cases  the  dogmatism  with 
which  the  doctrine  is  propounded  as  scientifically  established,  arise  from 
the  satisfaction  given  to  minds  naturally  seeking  the  largest  unity,  by 
the  wide  generalization  of  facts  which  the  theory  offers,  rather  than  from 
the  observation  of  facts  and  careful  induction  from  them.  Thus  Prof. 
Hreckel  admits  that  no  instance  of  abiogenesis  or  spontaneous  generation 
has  ever  been  observed  ;  and  yet  he  insists  dogmatically  that  it  must  be 
accepted  as  fact,  because  it  is  essential  to  the  theory  of  evolution,  which 
he  supposes  to  be  established  in  other  spheres  of  observation-^  What- 
ever this  conclusion  may  be,  it  is  not  physical  science.  As  the  authors 

*  The  Human  Species :  Appleton's  Translation,  p.  141. 

t  History  of  Creation,  Transl.  Vol.  I.,  pp.  339-349.     See  Generelle  Morphologie 
der  Organismen,  Vol.  1,  p.  174. 


462  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

of  the  Unseen  University  say,  "  It  is  against  all  true  scientific  experience 
that  life  can  appear  without  the  intervention  of  a  living  antecedent."* 
3.  The  laws  of  evolution  do  not  have  the  exactness,  definiteness,  and 
completeness  of  laws  of  nature  scientifically  expressed.     For  example, 
the  laws  of  the  development  of  species,  commonly  insisted  on  are  these 
two :  a  tendency  of  a  structure  to  vary  indefinitely,  and  the  tendency  of 
its  environment  by  its  action  on  it  to  confirm  and  accelerate  the  varia- 
tion in  a  specific  direction.     Prof.  Fiske  brings  these  under  the  general 
name  of  equilibration  or  adjustment,  which  he  distinguishes  as  external^ 
including   adaptation  and  natural   selection;    and  internal,  including 
heredity,  correlation  of  growth,  use  and  disuse.     There  is  a  great  con- 
trast between  evolution  and  its  laws  as  thus  presented,  and  the  law  of 
gravitation,  or  of  chemical  combination,  or  of  mechanics.     This  lack  of 
scientific  precision  is  exemplified  in  Prof.  TyndalPs  somewhat  famous 
description  of  the  development  of  the  eye :  "  The  senses  are  nascent,  the 
basis  of  all  of  them  being  that  simple  tactual  sense  which  the  sage  De- 
mocritus  recognized  2300  years  ago  as  their  common  progenitor.     The 
action  of  light  in  the  first  instance  appears  to  be  a  mere  disturbance  of 
the  chemical  processes  in  the  animal  organism,  similar  to  that  which 
occurs  in  the  leaves  of  plants.     By  degrees  the  action  becomes  localized 
in  a  few  pigment  cells,  more  sensitive  to  light  than  the  surrounding 
tissue.     The  eye  is  here  incipient.     At  first  it  is  merely  capable  of  re- 
vealing differences  of  light  and  shade  produced  by  bodies  near  at  hand. 
Followed,  as  the  interception  of  light  is  in  almost  all  cases,  by  the  con- 
tact of  the  closely  adjacent  opaque  body,  sight  in  this  condition  becomes 
a  kind  of  '  anticipatory  touch.'     The  adjustment  continues :    a  slight 
bulging  out  of  the  epidermis  over  the  pigment  granules  supervenes.     A 
lens  is  incipient,  and  through  the  operation  of  infinite  adjustments,  at 
length  reaches  the  perfection  that  it  displays  in  the  hawk  and  eagle."f 
This  certainly  is  not  science.     "  Infinite  adjustments"  is  a  fine  phrase, 
but  it  has  slight  resemblance  to  the  law  of  gravitation  with  its  mathema- 
tical exactness.     He  strides  with  seven-leagued  boots  from  step  to  step 
in  the  process,  giving  us  no  glimpse  of  why  or  wherefore  or  how.     No 
such  process  was  ever  observed ;  no  fact  sustains  a  single  one  of  the 
assumptions  ;  the  whole  conception  and  each  particular  in  it  is  a  figment 
of  fancy.     Nor  even  as  a  theory  does  it  account  for  or  explain  any  thing. 
Why  does  the  sunlight  develop  an  eye  in  one  spot  rather  than  another  ? 
Why  does  the  epidermis  "  bulge  out  ?"     HOWT  does  sunlight  develop  an 
optic-nerve  ?     And  how  do  vibrations  of  ether  against  an  incipient  eye 
or  a  perfect  eye  give  rise  to  the  utterly  dissimilar  phenomena  of  visual 
sensation  ?     A  similar  criticism  must  be  made  of  the  laws  of  the  survival 

*  Page  139.  f  Belfast  Address. 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM   EVOLUTION.  463 

of  the  fittest  and  of  natural  selection  ;  and  of  Mr.  Spencer's  laws  of  the 
instability  of  the  homogeneous  and  of  the  multiplication  of  a  force  in- 
cident on  it ;  and  of  his  law  which  he  says  "  follows  inevitably  from  a 
certain  primordial  truth,"  that  "  the  homogeneous  must  lapse  into  the 
heterogeneous  and  the  heterogeneous  must  become  more  heterogeneous.* 

4.  Evolutionists,  while  insisting  that  the  universe  is  merely  mechan- 
ism, are  obliged  to  resort  to  the  different  idea  of  organic  growth  in  carry- 
ing out  the  theory. 

The  theory  of  mechanical  evolution  presupposes  only  matter  and  the 
force  manifested  in  its  motion,  molar  or  molecular.  The  process  consists 
solely  of  the  rearrangement  or  redistribution  of  matter  and  force  accord- 
ing to  the  laws  of  mechanics.  This  is  the  form  in  which  the  theory  has 
commonly  been  held.  Even  Mr.  Spencer,  who  has  explicitly  declared 
that  the  law  of  organic  evolution  is  the  law  of  all  evolution,  actually 
expounds  it  as  the  law  of  mechanism ;  he  calls  evolution  the  redistribu- 
tion of  matter  and  force.  He  drops  the  organic  type  till  he  comes  to 
sociology.  There  he  treats  society  as  an  organism  not  as  a  machine. 

But  this  mechanical  conception  is  not  in  harmony  with  the  concep- 
tion of  nature  necessary  in  any  form  of  evolution.  A  machine  is  a 
finished  product  which  admits  no  new  part  or  function.  Nature,  as  the 
evolutionist  conceives  it  and  as  it  actually  is,  is  never  a  finished  product 
but  always  receptive  of  new  and  higher  forms  of  action,  revealing  higher 
powers,  and  realizing  new  and  higher  ends ;  it  is  always  plastic,  always 
progressive.  A  machine  does  not  manufacture  itself  by  factors  within 
itself,  but  is  manufactured  by  agents  outside  of  itself.  After  it  is  made 
it  does  not  run  itself  by  agents  within  itself,  but  is  run  by  a  power 
without  itself  and  for  the  accomplishment  of  an  end  external  to  itself. 
But  the  mechanical  evolution  represents  nature  as  a  machine,  yet 
doing  in  these  particulars  just  what  it  is  impossible  for  a  machine  to 
do ;  for  the  factors  in  the  evolution  and  all  the  products  of  their 
action  are  within  nature  itself.  In  these  respects  the  conception  of 
nature  as  a  machine  is  foreign  to  the  conception  of  evolution.  Mechan- 
ical evolution  is  simply  the  development  of  what  already  exists  into  new 
forms.  It  precludes  the  addition  of  matter  or  force,  not  already  in  that 
which  is  developed.  It  is  like  disentangling  a  tangle  of  silk  and  wind- 
ing it  on  a  spool.  If  this  is  the  meaning  of  evolution  then  the  primor- 
dial matter  must  have  contained  every  elemental  substance,  every 
physical  energy  and  every  power  of  mind  which  has  made  its  appear- 
ance in  the  evolution,  as  well  as  the  total  quantity  of  matter,  energy 
and  mind  which  exists,  or  will  ever  exist,  in  the  universe.  We  rightly 
argue  that  nothing  could  have  been  evolved  from  the  primordial 

*  First  Principles,  p.  46,  Chap,  xv.,  123. 


464  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

nebulous  matter  which  did  not  originally  exist  in  it.  But  if  this  is  so 
then  the  primordial  matter  is  no  longer  homogeneous,  but  contains 
matter  and  mind  and  all  their  various  properties  and  powers. 

But  the  theory  of  evolution  now  current  does  not  imply  that  the  pri- 
mordial matter  contains  all  that  is  evolved  from  it ;  it  implies  progress 
and  growth ;  it  assumes  the  appearance  of  new  and  higher  powers ; 
wittingly  or  unwittingly  the  evolution  is  conceived  in  the  type  of  an 
organic  growth.  If  the  original  nebulous  matter  is  really  homoge- 
neous, then  its  evolution  into  all  the  heterogeneous  bodies,  and  ener- 
gies and  minds  of  the  existing  universe,  must  be  by  the  agency  of  a 
power  or  powers  other  than  itself,  or  else  must  be  an  effect  without  a 
cause.  And  here  it  is  that  in  the  development  and  application  of  the 
theory  the  idea  of  growth  is  substituted  for  that  of  evolution  in  its 
primitive  and  etymological  meaning.  Evolutionists,  in  unfolding  and 
applying  their  theory,  talk  and  write  about  mechanism,  but  think  and 
argue  about  the  very  different  process  of  germination  and  growth. 

The  fact  that  evolutionists  cannot  carry  through  their  theory  on  the 
sole  basis  of  mechanism  demonstrates  that,  if  evolution  is  a  scientific 
fact,  the  true  science  of  the  universe  is  impossible  on  the  basis  of 
mechanism.  The  question  whether  nature  is  an  organism  or  a  mechan- 
ism has  been  discussed  from  ancient  times.  Since  Descartes  the 
mechanical  theory  has  been  very  commonly  accepted  by  scientists  as  at 
least  their  working  hypothesis  in  scientific  investigation.  But  the  sen- 
sitivity of  brutes  and  the  conscious  personality  of  man  are  facts  in 
the  universe,  and  it  is  scientifically  demonstrated  that  they  cannot  be 
explained  by  mechanism  as  forms  of  motion.  There  are  also  various 
particulars  in  which  nature  as  a  whole  is  of  the  type  of  an  organism, 
not  of  a  machine :  such  as  the  subordination  of  all  the  parts  to  the 
idea  of  the  whole,  the  teleological  character  of  the  action  in  the  pro- 
gressive realization  of  an  ideal,  and  the  fact  of  the  appearance  of  new 
and  higher  powers  analogous  to  vital  growth.  It  is  surprising  that  in 
the  face  of  insurmountable  difficulties  and  at  the  expense  of  resorting 
to  subordinate  hypotheses  more  complicated  and  inconceivable  than  that 
of  the  cycles  and  epicycles  of  the  Ptolemaic  astronomy,  scientists 
adhere  so  pertinaciously  to  the  one-sided  explanation  of  the  universe  as 
solely  a  mechanism.  Nothing  but  an  arbitrary  and  extravagant  specu- 
lative demand  for  unity  and  simplicity  seems  to  account  for  it.  After 
more  than  two  hundred  years  of  more  or  less  persistent  and  always  un- 
satisfactory efforts  to  explain  nature  mechanically,  scientists  may  prop- 
erly begin  to  suspect  that  something  more  is  involved  in  it  than  matter 
and  motion. 

The  process  of  evolution,  while  not  excluding  mechanism,  necessarily 
transcends  it,  and  is  more  satisfactorily  conceived  according  to  the  type 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  EVOLUTION.  465 

of  organic  growth.  But  even  as  thus  conceived  it  cannot  of  itself 
account  for  either  the  origin  or  the  evolution  of  the  universe  without 
recognizing  powers  beyond  and  above  it.  A  seed  does  not  germinate  of 
itself  according  to  the  laws  of  its  own  being;  but  only  as  powers  inde- 
pendent of  itself  supply  the  favorable  conditions,  provide  it  with  nour- 
ishment and  co-operate  with  it  in  its  growth.  Agents  act  on  it  and 
new  matter  is  added  to  it  from  without  itself.  Elemental,  chemical  and 
other  forces  combine  with  the  vital  force  of  the  seed  to  effect  the  result. 
All  cosmic  agencies  combine  to  build  up  the  growing  organism.  An 
acorn  thus  acted  on  and  supplied  with  food  does  not  transcend  the  law 
of  causation  when  it  produces  an  oak  and  thence  many  generations  of 
oaks.  But  if  the  primordial  homogeneous  matter  of  the  whole  universe 
is  itself  the  germ,  and  if  it  grows  into  a  Cosmos  containing  elemental 
substances,  diversified  energies,  matter,  and  mind,  which  were  not  in 
the  primordial  matter,  where  is  the  universe  around  it  which  provides 
its  pabulum  and  exerts  the  cosmic  agencies  outside  of  the  homo- 
geneous matter  which  quicken  and  sustain  its  growth  ?  It  is  plainly 
the  supposition  of  an  effect  without  a  cause.  It  is  the  scientifically  im- 
possible result  of  mind  evolved  from  matter,  diverse  elemental  sub- 
stances evolved  from  one  simple  elemental  substance,  diverse  properties 
and  powers  brought  into  being  which  had  no  existence  in  the  primor- 
dial matter.  It  implies,  as  I  have  already  shown,  an  absolute  begin- 
ning of  a  process  for  which  no  cause  exists,  and  continuous  growth  which 
nothing  feeds  or  sustains. 

Scientific^speculations  and  investigations  seem  equally  to  demonstrate 
that  no  agents  yet  known  within  nature,  whether  mechanical  or  organic, 
are  adequate  to  account  for  its  evolution  and  its  existence  in  its  present 
form.  We  are  driven  to  the  conclusion  that  to  explain  the  evolution  of 
nature  we  must  recognize  the  action  of  a  power  above  and  beyond  nature. 

III.  Scientific  evolution  as  distinguished  from  the  materialistic  forms 
of  the  theory  is  entirely  consistent  with  the  personality  of  man  and  the 
existence  of  a  personal  God. 

1.  It  does  not  involve  materialism.  A  theory  of  evolution  which  is 
legitimate  in  empirical  science  simply  enunciates  an  observed  invariable 
sequence ;  it  simply  declares  how  nature  goes  on.  Any  one  of  the  theo- 
ries subordinate  to  it  may  be  proved  true  while  the  others  remain  unsub- 
stantiated by  observed  facts.  The  nebular  hypothesis  and  the  persist- 
ence of  force  may  be  established  while  not  an  instance  of  spontaneous 
generation  has  been  observed.  Darwinian  evolution  of  species  may  be 
established  while  the  question  of  the  origin  of  life  remains  unanswered ; 
or  it  may  be  established  as  to  inferior  species  and  not  as  to  man ;  or  if 
the  development  of  an  anthropoid  animal  is  ascertained,  the  personality 
of  man  still  remains  a  fact  which  evolution  cannot  account  for,  and  the 
30 


466  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

existence  of  God  remains  a  truth  beyond  the  range  of  empirical  science. 
We  wait  for  discoveries  in  respect  to  evolution  without  solicitude  and 
with  the  same  interest  with  which  we  await  discoveries  in  astronomy 
and  chemistry.  It  is  not  evolution  which  demands  materialism,  but  it 
is  they  who  were  already  materialists  who  thrust  their  materialism  upon 
it,  just  as  they  do  on  any  other  law  of  nature. 

Evolution,  as  taught  by  Prof.  Hseckel  and  some  others,  is  material- 
istic. But  materialism  is  a  speculation  in  the  sphere  of  metaphysical 
and  theological  thought ;  it  can  have  no  place  in  the  inductions  of 
empirical  science.  Prof.  Huxley  admits  that  the  spiritualistic  and  the 
materialistic  theories  of  sensation  and  of  mental  phenomena  are  equally 
conceivable,  but  he  chooses  the  materialistic  as  his  working  hypothesis, 
because,  as  he  alleges,  it  is  the  more  simple.*  Mr.  Spencer  admits  the 
reality  of  fundamental  data  of  consciousness,  of  constitutional  principles 
regulating  all  thinking,  and  of  the  unknowable  Absolute ;  yet  he  also 
adopts  the  materialistic  conception  as  his  working  hypothesis.  It  is  not 
'strange,  therefore,  that  evolution  is  often  regarded  as  essentially  material- 
istic, and  that  some  theologians  have  felt  that  the  disproof  of  it  is  the 
only  defence  of  Theism  and  of  belief  in  the  existence  of  spirit. 

If,  however,  evolution  essentially  involves  materialism,  that  would  not 
prove  materialism  but  would  disprove  evolution.  In  the  article  just 
quoted  Mr.  Huxley  truly  says  that  "  we  know  more  of  mind  than  we  do 
of  body;  the  immaterial  world  is  a  firmer  reality  than  the  material." 
Our  knowledge  of  mind,  he  says  is  "  immediate ;"  that  of  body  is  "  me- 
diate," "  a  belief  as  contra-distinguished  from  an  intuition."  In  any 
conflict,  if  either  is  broken  down,  it  must  be  the  latter  not  the  former. 

If,  then,  evolution  is  to  stand  as  a  scientific  law  of  nature,  it  must 
stand  on  scientific  observation  and  induction,  independent  of  the  meta- 
physical and  theological  speculations  of  materialism.  It  is  thus  held 
by  many  scientists.  As  a  law  of  nature  it  is  simply  the  largest 
generalization  respecting  the  uniform  order  or  sequence  of  physical 
phenomena. 

2.  Scientific  evolution  is  not  inconsistent  with  the  personality  of  man. 
There  is  no  ground  for  person  or  spirit  in  any  physical  process.  Such 
a  being  cannot  be  an  effect  of  a  physical  evolution.  Personality  is 
above  nature.  Its  existence  cannot  be  incompatible  with  evolution 
which  goes  on  below  it  in  a  different  and  inferior  sphere. 

That  man  is  a  personal  being  is  known  as  a  fact  in  consciousness  and 
disclosed  in  all  human  history  and  literature.  The  question  is,  "  What 
is  man  ?  "  not,  "  How  did  he  become  so  ?  "  The  former  question  is  in- 
dependent of  the  latter.  If  man  is  in  fact  a  personal  being,  his  origin 

*  Sensation  and  Sensiferous  Organs;  Nineteenth  Century,  1879. 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM   EVOLUTION.  467 

must  be  consistent  with  the  fact.  Since  in  fact  he  is  a  person,  how  he 
came  to  be  so  must  be  consistent  with  the  fact  that  he  is  so.  Whatever 
the  process  by  which  he  became  a  person,  it  does  not  annul  the  fact 
that  he  is  a  person.  It  has  already  been  shown  that  rational  intelli- 
gence, feeling  and  determination  cannot  be  identified  with  motion  nor 
transformed  into  it,  and  cannot  be  accounted  for  by  matter  and  force. 
The  mere  lengthening  of  the  period  through  which  the  transformations 
of  physical  force  and  the  changes  of  matter  go  on,  brings  us  no  nearer 
to  this  identification  and  transformation.  The  primordial  matter  is 
matter  still,  though  in  nebulous  form ;  and  the  science  which  describes 
its  evolutions  can  never  transcend  the  limits  of  physical  science.  The 
facts  of  personality  must  be  attributed  to  some  other  cause  than  matter 
and  force.  According  to  Wallace,  by  natural  selection  inferior  animal 
forms  could  have  produced  apes,  and  afterwards  a  being  having  almost 
all  the  physical  characters  of  man  as  he  is  now ;  but  natural  selection 
by  itself  is  incapable  of  producing,  from  an  anthropoid  animal,  a  man 
such  as  we  find  in  the  most  savage  tribes  known  to  us.  He  adds  that 
near  the  beginning  of  the  tertiary  period  an  unknown  cause  began  to 
accelerate  the  development  of  intelligence  in  this  anthropoid  being. 
The  conclusion  seems  forced  on  us  that  to  whatever  extent  the  human 
organization  may  have  been  the  result  of  evolution,  no  molecular  action 
of  brain  and  nerve  can  account  for  intelligence,  and  that  the  facts  of 
personality  cannot  have  resulted  merely  from  the  evolution  of  matter 
and  force,  but  must  be  attributed  to  some  spiritual  cause. 

3.  Scientific  evolution  is  not  inconsistent  with  moral  law  and  a  moral 
system.  Law  in  the  domain  of  spirit  is  not  the  invariable  and  neces- 
sary sequence  which  is  called  the  law  of  nature ;  it  is  the  truth  of 
reason  known  to  a  rational  free-agent  as  law,  which  in  the  exercise  of 
free-will  he  is  under  obligation  to  obey.  If  rational  free-agents  exist, 
the  moral  law  exists  transcending  the  laws  of  nature,  and  between 
moral  law  and  the  laws  of  nature  there  can  be  no  conflict.  When  it 
is  objected  that  free-will  is  impossible  because  it  implies  exemption  from 
law,  the  objector  already  denies  that  there  is  any  law  in  the  universe 
other  than  the  invariable  sequences  of  nature ;  his  objection  is  thus 
merely  the  assumption  that  materialism  is  true. 

Man  is  implicated  in  nature  through  his  body.  His  physical  or- 
ganization is  subject  to  natural  law.  As  a  personal  being  he  knows 
himself  subject  to  the  law  of  reason.  There  is  no  incompatibility  be- 
tween the  two ;  nor  does  evolution  disclose  any  incompatibility.  The 
law  under  which  the  germ  was  evolved  into  a  completely  articulated 
body  no  more  conflicts  with  the  mature  man's  subjection  to  the  moral 
law,  than  do  the  laws  of  gravitation,  cohesion,  chemical  affinity,  heat 
or  electricity,  to  which  the  germ  in  its  evolution  was  equally  subjected. 


468  THE   PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF   THEISM. 

And  if  the  human  species  as  to  its  physical  characteristics  was  evolved 
from  lower  species,  that  no  more  conflicts  with  man's  freedom  and 
moral  obligation  under  rational  law  than  the  development  of  the  indi- 
vidual germ  into  an  individual  human  body.  Defenders  of  free-will 
themselves,  knowing  that  the  action  of  will  must  be  under  law,  have 
sought  for  its  law  in  the  invariable  sequences  of  nature  instead  of  in 
the  law  of  reason  to  free-will  which  is  moral  law,  and  thus  have  un- 
wittingly surrendered  the  whole  ground  to  the  materialist. 

4.  Scientific  evolution  is  consistent  with  Theism.  However  far  evo- 
lution may  extend  our  knowledge  into  the  past  it  cannot  reach  or  ex- 
plain the  origin  and  ground  of  things.  That  question  remains  as  before 
unanswered  by  physical  science.  And  evolution  gives  no  new  reason 
for  affirming  that  matter  is  eternal  and  that  in  it  alone  are  the  origin 
and  ground  of  all  things.  That  affirmation  transcends  evolution  and 
all  physical  science  as  really  as  theism  does.  We  come  here  to  a  limit 
of  physical  science  forever  fixed  and  impassable. 

The  theory  of  evolution  simply  declares  the  process  by  which  the 
universe  has  advanced  from  a  nebulous  condition  (whether  primordial 
or  derived)  to  its  present  condition.  The  assumption  that  evolution 
accounts  for  everything  and  excludes  God  from  the  universe  is  founded 
on  the  error  that  so  soon  as  we  learn  by  what  process  anything  is  made 
we  have  no  longer  any  need  of  believing  that  it  had  a  maker.  Just 
this  common  assumption  led  to  the  saying  of  Comte,  "  that  the  heavens 
no  longer  declare  the  glory  of  God,  but  only  the  glory  of  Hipparchus, 
Kepler,  Newton  and  the  rest  who  have  found  out  the  laws  of  their 
sequence."  It  is  as  if  one  should  say,  "  He  must  have  been  a  great 
sculptor  who  made  this  bronze  statue."  Another  replies,  "  No  sculptor 
ever  touched  it;  I  saw  it  made  myself;  a  formless,  molten  mass  flowed 
from  a  furnace,  disappeared  in  the  sand,  and  presently  came  out  this 
statue.  There  was  a  tendency  in  the  molten  mass  to  vary  indefinitely  ; 
and  something  in  its  environment  in  the  sand  which  helped  all  varia- 
tions in  the  direction  of  the  statue  and  checked  all  others.  The  result 
is  this  statue.  It  was  evolved ;  it  had  no  maker."* 

Evolution,  therefore,  does  not  exclude  God  nor  involve  materialism. 
As  Mr.  James  Sully  says,  "  To  provide  a  substantial  support  for  the 
thread  of  phenomenal  events,  it  would  seem  as  if  we  must  fall  back  on 
some  ultimate  philosophic  assumption  respecting  the  efficient  principle 
in  the  process."  And  evolution  presents  no  reason  for  assuming  that 
principle  to  be  eternal  matter.  Some  principle  other  than  matter  and 
force  must  be  assumed  to  account  for  the  universe  and  its  evolution. 
Materialism  can  never  be  established  by  any  discoveries  of  physical 
science. 

*  See  Personality  :  Blackwood  &  Sons,  1879 ;  p.  107. 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  EVOLUTION.  469 

Evolution,  also,  lias  no  explanation  of  the  facts  of  personality  and 
here  again  leaves  the  demand  for  theism  as  it  was.  Prof.  Fiske,  speak- 
ing of  the  facts  of  consciousness,  says :  "  The  assertion  of  the  evolutionist 
is  purely  historical  in  its  import  and  includes  no  hypothesis  whatever  as 
to  the  ultimate  origin  of  consciousness ;  least  of  all  is  it  intended  to  imply 
that  consciousness  was  evolved  from  matter.  It  is  not  only  inconceiv- 
able how  mind  should  have  been  produced  from  matter,  but  it  is  incon- 
ceivable that  it  should  have  been  produced  from  matter ;  unless  matter 
possessed  already  the  attribute  of  mind  in  embryo — an  alternative  which 
it  is  difficult  to  invest  with  any  real  meaning.  .  .  .  The  problem  is 
altogether  too  abstruse  to  be  solved  with  our  present  resources.  .  .  , 
The  only  point  on  which  we  can  be  clear  is  that  no  mere  collocation  of 
material  atoms  could  ever  have  evolved  the  phenomena  of  consciousness."* 

There  is,  then,  nothing  in  evolution  which  conflicts  with  Theism.  To 
find  a  cause  for  the  events  and  for  their  serial  order  and  a  substantial 
support  for  the  phenomena,  thought  must  fall  back  on  some  ultimate 
power  or  being  as  the  ground  or  source  and  the  continuous  support  of 
the  process.  It  cannot  be  matter  and  force,  for  these  are  inadequate. 
It  may  be  Energizing  Reason,  for  energizing  reason,  evermore  and  pro- 
gressively realizing  its  ideals  in  the  forms  and  under  the  limitations  of 
space  and  time,  is  adequate  to  be  the  ultimate  principle  or  cause  of  the 
universe  and  of  all  its  physical  processes.  Prof.  Lotze  regards  the 
world-process  as  a  gradual  unfolding  of  a  creative  spiritual  principle, 
and  both  he  and  Ulrici  recognize  in  the  evolution  both  a  mechanical 
and  a  teleological  process,  implying  both  an  energizing  and  a  directing 
agency.  And  both  processes  are  recognized  in  the  Energizing  Reason. 

Mr.  Spencer,  on  the  contrary,  thinks  that  evolution  is  irreconcilable 
with  the  idea  of  pre-existing  mind.f  And  yet  in  some  of  his  positions 
he  is  himself  in  close  affinity  with  theistic  thought.  He  teaches  that  the 
existence  of  "  the  Absolute  is  a  necessary  datum  of  consciousness,"  and 
that  "  the  belief  which  this  datum  constitutes  has  a  higher  warrant 
than  any  other  whatever ;"  that  according  to  the  laws  of  thought  it  is 
impossible  to  rid  ourselves  of  it ;  that  it  is  essential  in  every  thought, 
'•  being  the  obverse  of  our  self-consciousness ;"  that  the  Absolute  is  a 
"  Power  by  which  we  are  acted  upon"  of  which  "  every  phenomenon"  is 
"  a  manifestation ;"  that  it  is  "  omnipresent,"  and  "  wholly  incompre- 
hensible." An  enthusiastic,  but  not  very  discriminating  admirer  records 
his  conviction  that  "  Herbert  Spencer  has  made  an  atheistic  philosophy 
impossible."  It  is  true  that  Spencer  here  departs  from  his  doctrine  of 
the  relativity  of  knowledge  and  takes  sides  with  the  theologian  in  re- 

*  J.  Fiske;  Darwinism  and  other  Essays;  pp.  67,  68. 
f  Reply  to  Martineau,  Contemporary  Rev.  Vol.  XX. 


470  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

cognizing  primitive  and  constitutional  data  of  consciousness,  and  know- 
ledge of  the  existence  of  absolute  omnipresent  power  acting  on  us  and 
manifesting  itself  in  all  phenomena.  The  theologian  goes  only  a  step 
further  in  affirming  that  since  the  Absolute  Power  acts  on  us  and  mani- 
fests itself  in  all  phenomena,  we  know  what  it  is,  at  least  to  this  extent, 
that  it  must  be  a  cause  endowed  with  powers  adequate  to  account  for 
all  phenomena  both  of  matter  and  mind ;  that  therefore  it  can  only 
be  Reason  Energizing.  With  this  also  Mr.  Spencer  agrees  so  far  as  to 
recognize  the  Unknowable  as  accounting  for  the  phenomena  both  of 
matter  and  mind;  but  after  thus  recognizing  it  and  even  partially 
defining  it  accordantly,  he  falls  into  contradiction  in  saying  that  it  is 
unknowable.  And  sometimes  he  seems  to  think  of  it  as  the  one  sub- 
stance of  Spinoza,  as  when  he  says  that  the  phenomena  of  mind  and 
matter  are  "  modes  of  the  Unknowable." 

But  Energizing  Reason  fully  accounts  for  the  phenomena,  since  it  is 
at  once  the  Reason  that  orders  and  directs  and  the  Efficiency  that 
energizes.  The  universe  is  thus  accounted  for  dynamically  as  the 
effect  of  a  sufficient  cause.  It  is  the  effect  of  the  energizing  of  the 
Absolute  Reason  progressively  realizing  its  own  eternal  and  archetypal 
truths,  laws,  ideals  and  ends  in  a  system  of  dependent  beings,  personal 
and  impersonal,  under  the  limits  of  space,  time  and  quantity. 

It  should  be  added  that  Spencer's  Unknowable  involves  every  diffi- 
culty which  is  so  loudly  charged  on  the  theistic  doctrine  of  creation. 
If  the  evolution  of  the  unknowable  absolute  had  a  beginning,  why 
did  the  Absolute  rest  inactive  from  eternity,  and  at  a  certain  time 
wake  up  as  it  were  and  begin  the  evolution  ?  Did  it  create  the  homo- 
geneous matter  out  of  nothing,  or  emanate  it  from  itself,  or  find  it  as 
it  had  lain  motionless  from  all  eternity,  and  start  it  into  action  ?  If 
the  evolution  had  no  beginning  but  has  gone  on  from  eternity  as  now, 
then  the  homogeneous,  which  is  the  foundation  of  the  evolution,  drops 
out,  the  universe  has  always  been  in  a  condition  of  heterogeneity 
resulting  from  some  previous  action  of  force,  and  we  lose  our  supposed 
evolution  from  the  homogeneous.  Theism,  without  defining  how  long 
the  universe  has  existed,  affirms  that  so  long  as  it  has  existed,  it  has 
always  depended  on  God  for  its  existence,  its  arrangement  and  its 
action.  This  meets  all  that  is  philosophically  essential  in  the  idea  of 
creation. 

It  must  also  be  considered  that  while  Spencer  takes  sides  here  with 
theism  as  to  its  theory  of  knowledge  in  affirming  that  we  have  know- 
ledge of  Absolute  Being,  while  thus  he  encounters  all  the  difficulties  of 
theism,  and  yet  finds  his  Unknowable  inadequate  to  account  for  the 
universe  and  its  evolution,  he  is  at  the  same  time  inconsistent  with  his 
own  theory  of  knowledge  in  the  recognition  of  the  Absolute.  He 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  EVOLUTION.  47 1 

cannot  consistently  hold  that  all  knowledge  is  relative  and  at  the 
same  time  affirm  knowledge  of  the  existence  of  unconditioned,  abso- 
lute, omnipresent  power ;  he  cannot  affirm  that  we  know  only  the 
finite  and  at  the  same  time  affirm  that  we  know  the  existence  of  a 
power  that  transcends  the  finite.  If  all  knowledge  is  relative,  the 
knowledge  that  the  Absolute  exists  even  as  unknowable,  is  impossible. 
The  thought  of  light  could  never  originate  in  the  mind  of  a  man  born 
blind.  A  brute  can  never  know  its  own  irrationality.  The  very 
assertion  of  the  knowledge  of  the  Absolute"  as  existing  although  incom- 
prehensible is  the  assertion  that  knowledge  is  not  wholly  relative  and 
is  not  limited  to  finite  things ;  for  it  asserts  knowledge  of  the  absolute 
as  distinguished  from  the  finite.  In  his  biology,  psychology  and  ethics, 
Spencer's  theory  of  the  Absolute  is  not  practically  operative,  but  he 
writes  as  if  man's  knowledge  was  limited  to  the  phenomenal  and  the 
finite.  In  his  doctrine  of  the  Unknowable  he  accepts  for  the  moment 
the  theistic  theory  of  knowledge. 

The  following  thoughts  of  Spencer  the  theist  heartily  endorses.: 
"  He  who  contemplates  the  universe  from  the  religious  point  of  view, 
must  learn  to  see  that  this  which  we  call  science  is  one  constituent  of 
the  great  whole ;  and  as  such  ought  to  be  regarded  with  a  sentiment 
like  that  which  the  remainder  excites.  While  he  who  contemplates 
the  universe  from  the  scientific  point  of  view,  must  learn  to  see  that 
this  which  we  call  religion  is  similarly  a  constituent  of  the  great  whole ; 
and  being  such  must  be  treated  as  a  subject  of  science  with  no  more 
prejudice  than  any  other  reality.  It  behooves  each  party  to  try  to 
understand  the  other,  with  the  conviction  that  the  other  has  some- 
thing worthy  to  be  understood ;  and  with  the  conviction  that  when 
mutually  recognized  this  something  will  be  the  basis  of  a  complete  re- 
conciliation."* 

IV.  Scientific  evolution  affords  to  materialism  no  relief  from  its 
difficulties  and  contradictions,  and  is  itself  discredited  if  identified 
with  materialism  or  used  as  a  vehicle  for  its  dogmas. 

1.  Scientific  evolution,  which  if  true,  is  only  a  factual  law  of  empi- 
rical science,  cannot  be  identified  with  materialism,  which  is  a  dog- 
matic metaphysical  assertion  as  to  what  is  the  nature  of  absolute  and 
eternal  being. 

Materialism  rests  on  its  own  basis  as  a  metaphysical  theory  of  the 
universe.  It  is  a  theory  incompetent  to  account  for  the  universe  and 
full  of  contradictions.  When  evolution  is  made  fche  vehicle  for  its 
propagation,  the  incompetency  and  contradictions  of  materialism  are 
imputed  to  evolution  and  break  it  down.  The  reason  why  evolution 

*  First  Principles,  p.  21,  §  6. 


472  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

has  been  so  strenuously  opposed  is  that  it  has  been  dogmatically  and 
loudly  proclaimed  as  essentially  and  necessarily  a  doctrine  of  mate- 
rialism. 

Physical  science  cannot  account  for  the  facts  of  the  physical  uni- 
verse itself  nor  for  the  facts  of  personality.  Evolution,  when  iden- 
tified with  materialism,  is  made  responsible  for  accounting  for  both,  and 
it  fails. 

2.  Evolution  removes  no  contradictions  and  difficulties  of  material- 
ism in  accounting  for  the  physical  universe  and  its  facts,  but  sometimes 
proves  them  irremovable. 

The  law  of  the  persistence  of  force  fails  to  account  for  all  the 
known  manifestations  of  force.  Neither  the  mechanical  nor  the  or- 
ganic conception  of  the  material  universe  accounts  for  its  existence 
and  the  facts  observed  in  it.  Whether  it  is  mechanism  or  organism 
it  reveals  a  power  outside  of  itself.  Evolution  does  not  relieve  the 
materialist  from  this  difficulty,  but  at  every  step  reveals  it  anew. 

Evolution  precludes  the  materialistic  conception  that  the  world  had 
no  beginning.  When  the  materialist  says  that  matter  is  eternal,  it 
seems  easy  enough  to  believe  and  impossible  to  disprove  it.  But  so 
soon  as  we  come  to  unfold  it  into  its  real  significance  its  impossibility 
is  apparent.  And  this  is  precisely  what  evolution  demonstrates.  At 
first  the  evolutionist  tells  us  of  original,  primordial  matter,  and  reasons 
as  if  this  nebulous  stuff  were  really  the  ultimate  ground  of  all  things 
and  no  question  could  arise  from  whence  it  came  or  how  it  came  to  be 
constituted  and  arranged  as  it  wras.  But  this  childlike  faith  cannot 
continue. 

Mr.  Spencer  tells  us  that  "  Matter,  Motion  and  Force,  as  cognizable 
by  human  intelligence,  can  neither  come  into  existence  nor  cease  to 
exist."*  But  if  motion  is  eternal,  then  the  homogeneous  never  existed ; 
for  with  the  first  motion  it  ceases  to  be  homogeneous  and  equilibrated. 
If  the  theory  of  evolution  is  true,  motion  is  not  eternal. 

If  now  the  materialist  says  that  the  homogeneous  is  eternal,  then  it 
must  have  existed  eternally  without  motion ;  and  at  some  time  there 
was  a  beginning  of  the  motion.  The  motion  could  not  have  been 
caused  from  within  the  homogeneous  stuff,  for  that  is  in  complete 
equilibrium ;  in  it  all  the  matter  and  force  of  the  universe  are  motion- 
less in  equilibrium;  and  the  entire  universe  being  thus  equilibrated 
cannot  start  itself  into  motion.  Mr.  -Spencer  says  it  is  an  unstable 
equilibrium ;  but  these  words  Jiave  no  pertinence  to  an  equilibrium  of 
the  entire  universe.  Once  in  equilibrium,  it  must  remain  motionless 
forever,  unless  the  motion  in  which  the  evolution  begins  is  either 

*  First  Principles,  p.  358,  §  109. 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  EVOLUTION.  473 

without  a  cause,  which  is  absurd,  or  else  is  caused  by  some  power  out- 
side of  the  universe. 

And  every  theory  of  evolution  must  assume  some  particular  arrange- 
ment of  matter  and  force  at  the  beginning,  containing  the  possibility  of 
what  is  to  be  evolved  and  excluding  the  possibility  of  every  different 
evolution.  Thus  not  merely  the  primordial  stuff,  but  its  primitive 
constitution  and  laws  are  antecedent  to  the  evolution  and  cannot  be 
accounted  for  by  it.  The  evolution  cannot  go  beyond  itself  and  behind 
that  primordial  arrangement  to  determine  or  cause  them,  and  so  to 
cause  its  own  beginning  and  its  own  determinate  course.  Any  cos- 
mogony which  proposes  to  account  for  the-  existence  and  constitution 
of  the.  universe  as  a  whole  by  the  uniform  sequences  or  laws  of  the  in- 
teraction of  its  parts  is  absurd.  The  assertion  that  evolution  proves 
materialism  is  just  this  absurdity. 

The  fact  of  a  beginning  is  also  demonstrated  by  evolution  in  another 
way ;  It  gives  scientific  proof  of  the  fact.  Under  the  action  of  physi- 
cal causes  according  to  their  known  laws,  the  evolution  must  come  to 
an  end  in  complete  and  stable  equilibrium,  and  all  life,  and  all  motion, 
molar  and  molecular,  must  cease.  But  if  the  evolution,  according 
to  its  own  laws,  must  come  to  an  end,  then  it  must  have  had  a  be- 
ginning. 

If  it  is  objected  that  the  assumed  homogeneous  in  which  the  present 
evolution  began  was  itself  the  equilibrated  matter  in  which  a  previous 
evolution  had  ended,  and  that  thus  a  rhythmic  alternation  of  differen- 
tiation and  integration  may  go  on  without  beginning  or  end,  the  answer 
is  that  the  equilibrium  in  which  a  process  of  evolution  issues  cannot  be 
unstable,  but  must  be  a  fixed  and  stable  equilibrium  in  which  every 
force  hi  the  universe  is  held  still  by  an  equal  force  and  all  matter  is 
motionless,  and  there  is  no  power  within  the  equilibrated  universe  to 
renew  motion  in  any  of  its  parts.  If  now  we  suppose  a  force  incident 
on  it,  it  must  be  a  force  from  outside  of  the  material  universe,  and 
therefore  hypermaterial. 

Evolution  at  every  step  in  its  progress  equally  demonstrates  in  nature 
a  power  above  and  beyond  nature.  This  I  shall  show  in  another 
section. 

Therefore,  if  the  theory  of  evolution  is  true,  it  demonstrates  that  the 
materialistic  assumption  of  the  eternal  and  independent  existence  of 
matter  is  false. 

And  reason  finds  no  support  for  materialism  in  the  immense  periods 
of  time  recognized  in  evolution.  Evolution  gives  us  a  time-world 
evolving  in  a  continuity  of  successive  causal  action  and  interaction,  as 
gravitation  gives  us  a  space-world  in  coexistent  unity  of  causal  action 
and  interaction  through  space.  Materialism  must  find  in  matter  and 


474  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

force  not  merely  the  power  which  accounts  for  and  explains  the  be- 
ginning of  the  evolution,  but  that  which  continuously  sustains  and 
directs  it  in  every  moment  of  time  and  in  the  interaction  of  bodies  co- 
existent in  space.  Whether  we  think  of  a  rhythmic  alternation  of 
differentiation  and  integration  each  lasting  trillions  of  years,  or  of 
rhythmic  vibrations  of  an  ether,  trillions  of  which  beat  on  the  eye  in 
a  second  of  time,  or  of  a  single  antecedence  and  sequence  of  cause  and 
effect,  whether  we  think  of  interaction  between  bodies  in  space  through 
millions  of  miles  or  through  the  immeasurably  little  distance  of  co- 
hering atoms,  we  find  an  action  which  matter  and  motor-force  alone 
cannot  explain  and  which  reveals  the  presence  of  a  power  transcend- 
ing these.  Evolution  does  not  help  the  materialist  out  of  his  diffi- 
culty here.  On  the  contrary,  evolution,  as  being  not  merely  the 
development  of  powers  previously  existing  in  the  primordial  matter 
but  a  progress  or  growth  in  which  new  powers  come  into  action,  at 
every  grade  attained  in  the  ascent  reveals  the  presence  of  a  liyper- 
material  power.  The  long  periods  of  the  evolution  might  dull  the 
belief  of  the  existence  of  God  in  a  deist  who  regards  the  deity  only  as 
the  maker  of  a  machine  which  he  sets  to  running  without  his  interven- 
tion. Even  here,  however,  the  objection  would  be  addressed  to  the 
imagination  rather  than  to  the  reasoning  power ;  a  First  Cause  re- 
moved to  so  immense  a  distance  in  time,  would  make  little  impression ; 
like  a  fixed  star  so  far  off  that  it  has  no  parallax.  And  it  is  doubtless 
the  very  length  of  this  period  of  evolution  which  gives  it  an  atheistic 
influence  on  the  popular  mind,  as  if  it  crowded  God  off  beyond  the 
confines  of  the  universe.  But  tljis  affects  the  imagination  only  ;  there 
is  nothing  in  it  to  convince  the  understanding.  And  this  influence  acts 
only  against  the  mechanical  conception  of  the  deist.  It  has  no  force 
against  rational  theism  which  finds  God  immanent  in  nature ;  and 
none  against  Christian  Theism  which  reveals  God  as  "  Him  in  whom 
we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being." 

3.  Evolution  gives  no  aid  to  materialism  in  resolving  mind  into  a 
function  of  matter  and  all  mental  acts  into  products  of  matter  and 
motor-force. 

It  is  indeed  used  as  an  argument  for  this  conclusion  and  as  such 
is  widely  regarded  as  unanswerable.  But  it  is  important  to  remember 
that  the  question  is  as  to  what  we  are,  not  as  to  how  we  came  to  be 
so.  The  question  what  an  Egyptian  pyramid  is,  is  independent  of  the 
question  how  it  was  built.  Any  theory  how  it  was  built  must  give 
way,  if  it  involves  the  denial  that  the  pyramid  is  what  we  know  it  to 
be.  Of  the  same  purport  is  Chauncey's  Wright's  remark  in  a  review 
of  Spencer,  that  the  critical  question  is  not  how  we  come  to  believe^ 
but  why  we  believe.  In  a  previous  chapter  it  has  been  demonstrated 


UiUVERSIT 

MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM   EVOLUt&ON,  475 

that  we  know  ourselves  as  personal  beings,  and  that  if  this  is  not  real 
knowledge  no  knowledge  is  possible.  If  the  doctrine  that  mind  is  a 
function  of  matter,  that  the  Ego  is  but  a  series  of  sensations,  is  an 
essential  element  in  the  theory  of  evolution,  then  it  is  the  theory 
itself  which  is  proved  false,  not  the  personal  Ego  that  is  proved 
non-existent.  The  theory  that  mind  is  a  function  of  matter  would 
also  involve  a  radical  change  in  the  accepted  definition  of  matter. 

But  in  fact  evolution  leads  to  the  contrary  conclusion.  The  law  of 
the  persistence  of  force  is  essential  to  evolution.  But  it  has  been 
found  impossible  to  reduce  the  facts  of  mind  under  that  law.  The 
mind-process  and  the  motor-process  go  on  parallel  but  independent. 
As  Prof.  Clifford  says,  the  mind-series  "  goes  along  by  itself."  The 
human  mind  will  not  rest  content  with  a  series  of  phenomena  refer- 
able to  no  agent  or  cause.  We  shall  not  be  likely  to  attempt  to  think 
of  the  unity  of  the  two  by  the  pre-established  harmony  of  Leibnitz. 
Dogmatic  materialists  quietly  assume  against  all  evidence  that  the 
mind-series  is  dependent  on  the  motor-series  and  cooly  reason  as  if  this 
were  an  established  fact,  or  else  ignore  it  as  not  an  object  of  scientific 
thought.  But  evidently  the  only  legitimate  scientific  procedure  is  to 
recognize  the  mind-series  as  the  manifestation  of  a  hypermaterial  agent 
or  cause ;  and  especially  in  view  of  the  fact  that  in  self-consciousness 
a  man  has  knowledge  of  himself  as  one  identical  individual  endowed 
with  reason,  rational  sensibility  and  free-will. 

4.  Scientific  evolution  affords  to  materialism  no  basis  on  which  to 
teach  good  morals. 

First,  there  would  be  no  data  for  constructing  a  theory  of  ethics. 
Ethical  ideas  in  their  distinctive  sense  would  have  no  legitimate  place. 
The  idea  of  right  and  wrorfg  does  not  arise  in  the  sphere  of  theg 
material.  Even  when  we  speak  of  the  right  or  wrong  action  of  me- 
chanical or  organic  forces,  the  words  mean  merely  its  conformity  or 
nonconformity  with  a  truth  of  reason  which  as  regulative  or  directive 
of  the  action  is  a  law  to  it.  To  materialism  the  distinction  of  right 
and  wrong  has  nO  meaning.  Evolution,  going  on  solely  in  the  sphere 
of  the  material,  cannot  originate  the  distinction  nor  give  it  any  sig- 
nificance. As  a  law  of  nature  it  is  entirely  compatible  with  the  dis- 
tinction when  once  it  has  originated  in  the  reason ;  but,  because  it  is 
merely  a  law  of  nature,  it  can  give  no  aid  to  materialism  in  its  unavail- 
ing struggles  to  construct  from  materialistic  data  an  idea  of  moral  law 
or  of  right  and  wrong  which  will  meet  and  satisfy  the  moral  conscious- 
ness of  mankind. 

And  on  the  materialistic  supposition  there  would  be  no  moral  agents 
capable  of  knowing  and  obeying  moral  law.  Men  would  not  be 
rational  free-agents,  but  merely  material  organisms  in  which  physical 


476  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

force  acts  under  cosmic  action  mechanically  and  necessarily.  A  man 
then  would  be  no  more  responsible  for  his  actions,  no  more  virtuous  or 
vicious  than  a  river  which  "  windeth  at  its  own  sweet  will."  And  there 
would  be  no  place  for  the  law  of  love ;  for  this  has  meaning  only  as 
rational  beings  know  themselves  related  to  each  other  under  the  law  of 
universal  reason  and  thus  united  in  a  rational  and  moral  system.  In 
the  sphere  of  matter  and  force  the  stronger  necessarily  prevails  over  the 
weaker ;  in  the  sphere  of  reason  and  personality  the  law  requires  the 
stronger  to  protect  and  nelp  the  weaker. 

In  the  absence  of  moral  ideas,  moral  law  and  moral  agents,  nothing 
remains  to  regulate  the  conduct  of  life  but  the  desire  of  enjoyment. 
Reflective  thought  can  rise  from  this  desire  to  a  knowledge  of  the  ex- 
pedient ;  and  this  is  the  highest  attainment  possible.  For  the  regula- 
tion of  conduct  there  is  no  longer  a  rational  and  moral  law  declaring 
what  ought  to  be  done.  There  is  only  an  invariable  sequence  or  law  of 
nature ;  which  is  that  every  man  necessarily  follows  his  nature  and 
seeks  whatever  he  thinks  will  most  promote  his  own  enjoyment. 

Secondly,  if  now  we  cast  about  for  some  general  principle  or  law  de- 
termining how  a  man  shall  seek  his  own  interest,  evolution  brings  in  a 
law  which  is  positively  immoral.  It  must  bring  in  such  a  law  and 
cannot  bring  in  any  other.  The  law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest  is 
only  a  specific  instance  of  the  law  of  all  material  force,  that  the  stronger 
must  prevail  over  the  weaker.  This  becomes  the  universal  law  accord- 
ing to  which  all  action  in  the  universe  necessarily  goes  on.  That  the 
stronger  always  overpowers  and  crowds  out  the  weaker  is  the  law  of 
minerals,  and  plants,  and  brutes,  and  men.  The  idea  of  right  is  lost 
in  the  idea  of  might.  If  now  one  attempts  to  find  any  principle  for  a 
moral  law  regulating  the  whole  universe*  it  could  be  only  the  principle 
which  is  subversive  of  all  morality,  that  "  Might  makes  right.'"  And 
so  Prof.  Haeckel  represents  it :  "  None  but  the  idealist  scholar  who 
closes  his  eyes  to  the  real  truth,  or  the  priest  who  tries  to  keep  his 
spiritual  flock  in  ecclesiastical  leading-strings,  can  any  longer  tell  the 
tale  of  'the  moral  ordering  of  the  world.'  .  .  .  The  terrible  and 
ceaseless  struggle  for  existence  gives  the  real  impulse  to  the  blind 
course  of  the  world.  A  '  moral  ordering '  and  a  '  purposive  plan '  of  the 
world  can  only  be  visible,  if  the  presence  of  an  immoral  rule  of  the 
strongest  and  undesigned  organization  is  ignored."*  The  theory,  if 
made  a  basis  of  ethics,  would  seem  to  justify  the  Spartans  in  destroying 
feeble  infants,  which  Prof.  Haeckel,  though  not  justifying  it,  compares 
to  a  gardener's  pulling  the  weeds  from  among  the  cultivated  plants.f 


*  Evolution  of  Man  :  Appleton's  Translation.     Vol.  I.,  pp.  Ill,  112. 
f  History  of  Creation :  Translation.    Vol.  I.,  pp.  172,  173. 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM   EVOLUTION.  477 

The  same  would  justify  savages  in  killing  their  old  people.  Mr.  Dar- 
win, though  certainly  not  intending  to  justify  it  as  a  universal  rule, 
speaks  of  it  as  evincing  "  sound  sense."  '•  Unconscious  selection  in  the 
strictest  sense  of  the  word,  i.  e.,  the  saving  of  the  more  useful  animals 
and  the  neglect  or  slaughter  of  the  •  less  useful  without  'any  thought  of 
the  future,  must  have  gone  on  occasionally  from  the  remotest  periods 
and  among  the  most  barbarous  nations.  .  .  .  When  the  Fuegians  are 
hard  pressed  by  want,  they  kill  their  old  women  for  food  rather  than 
their  dogs ;  for,  as  we  were  assured,  '  old  women  no  use — dogs  catch 
otters.'  The  same  sound  seme  would  surely  lead  them  to  preserve 
their  most  useful  dogs  when  still  harder  pressed  by  famine.  Mr.  Old- 
field,  who  has  seen  so  much  of  the  Aborigines  of  Australia,  informs 
me  that  they  are  all  very  glad  to  get  an  English  Kangaroo-dog,  and 
several  instances  have  been  known  of  the  father  killing  his  own  infant 
that  the  mother  might  suckle  the  much-prized  puppy."*  I  suppose 
Mr.  Darwin  would  call  this  also  "sound  sense;"  and  according  to 
materialistic  evolution  it  would  be.  It  would  not  be  justifiable  or  right 
any  more  than  a  stone's  falling  to  the  ground  is  justifiable  or  right,  for 
the  idea  of  right  would  be  wanting  and  the  word  would  have  no  mean- 
ing ;  but  it  would  be  acting  according  to  the  law  of  nature,  the  only 
law  supposed  to  exist.  Accordingly  a  professor  lecturing  recently 
before  the  Academy  of  Useful  Arts  on  "  Evolution  in  the  Arts,"  said, 
according  to  the  report  of  the  newspapers :  "  It  is  contrary  to  the  law 
of  nature  to  have  any  sympathy  for  paupers,  crippled  folk,  or  Indians." 
Prof.  Bowne  cites  Hellwald,  an  enthusiastic  German  evolutionist,  as 
insisting  on  the  struggle  for  existence  and  the  right  of  the  stronger  as 
the  only  basis  of  morals  ;  and  as  claiming  that  the  word  morality  should 
be  banished  as  void  of  meaning  from  scientific  writings.  He  describes 
all  philanthropic  efforts  to  raise  men  to  ideal  humanity  as  humanity- 
hypocrisy  (Humanitats-heuchelei.)f  And  Mr.  Roebuck  has  said :  "  The 
first  business  of  a  colonist  is  to  clear  the  country  of  wild  beasts,  and  the 
most  noxious  of  all  the  wild  beasts  is  the  wild  man." 

Thirdly,  materialistic  evolution  gives  no  basis  for  the  just  rights  of 
the  individual  in  relation  to  the  State ;  but  if  logically  consistent  must 
declare  it  to  be  an  invariable  law  of  nature  that  the  State  as  the  stronger 
hold  the  individual  as  the  weaker  in  subjection  to  its  own  arbitrary  and 
despotic  power. 

Mr.  Spencer  says :  "  The  life  of  the  social  organism  must,  as  an  end, 
rank  above  the  lives  of  its  units."  This  accords  with  the  "  dulce  et 
decorum  est  pro  patria  mori "  of  all  ethics.  But  Mr.  Spencer  teaches 


*  Variations  under  Domestication  :  Vol.  II.,  Chap,  xx.,  p.  260.     Am.  Ed. 

f  Culturgeschichte  in  ihrer  natiirlichen  Entwickelung :  Studies  in  Theism,  p.  423. 


478  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

that  the  interest  of  the  State  and  that  of  its  individual  units  conflict 
and  can  be  brought  into  harmony  only  in  the  remote  future  by  natural 
evolution.*  As  civilization  slowly  approaches  this  harmony  the  sub- 
ordination, loyalty  and  allegiance  of  the  individual  to  the  State  is  pro- 
portionately lessened.  Ludwig  Noire  regards  the  State  as  an  organism 
which  controls,  appropriates  and  uses  the  individual  for  its  own  advan- 
tage. "  This  consideration,"  he  says,  "  clears  away  much  hollow 
philanthropy,  which  applies  the  standard  of  individual  morality  to  the- 
State,  not  considering  that  the  State  is  a  great  organism  of  a  peculiar 
kind  which  is  subject  to  far  other  laws  than  the  individual.  Hence 
the  State  may  demand  of  the  individual  to  sacrifice  his  life  and  all  the 
highest  ends  of  his  life  to  the  State."f  Mr.  Darwin,  in  answering  the 
objection  that  the  sexless  working  bee  could  never  have  been  evolved 
under  the  law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  maintains  that  the  swarin 
must  be  considered  as  the  unit ;  the  swarm  which  has  the  most  working 
bees  would  have  the  advantage  in  the  struggle  for  life.  Noire,  Spencer 
and  other  evolutionists  conceive  of  a  State  as  a  unit  in  the  same  way. 
Society  is  treated  as  itself  actually  and  literally  an  organism  of  which 
individuals  are  the  component  parts,  and  trades,  guilds  and  other  sub- 
ordinate unities  are  organs.  The  individual  is  lost  in  the  organization 
and  exists  only  for  it.  The  conclusion  would  be  that  the  more  com- 
plete the  despotism  of  the  State  over  the  individual,  the  more  prosper- 
ous it  will  be.  Here  comes  in  a  sort  of  law  of  altruistic  self-sacrifice ; 
but  it  is  compulsory  and  not  of  love ;  as  a  lamb  exercises  self-sacrifice 
when  devoured  by  a  wolf. 

Christianity  teaches  that  we  are  members  one  of  another,  and  are  one 
body  in  Christ.  But  it  is  the  common  membership  of  free-agents  in  a 
rational  and  moral  system ;  and  on  this  fact  the  law  of  love  is  founded. 
Christianity  in  the  very  act  of  declaring  the  community  of  men  in  their 
common  relations  to  God  in  Christ  has  emphasized  the  worth  of  the 
individual  and  the  sacredness  of  his  rights,  and  thus  has  laid  the  foun- 
dation of  political  and  personal  liberty,  of  the  dignity  of  labor,  and  of 
the  distinctive  ideas  of  modern  progress.  Its  command  is,  "  Honor  all 
men."  It  has  established  the  principle  that  government  itself  is  subject 
to  God's  law  of  love,  is  bound  to  enact  and  enforce  just  laws  and  to 
protect  the  rights  of  the  citizens,  and  exists  for  the  good  of  the  gov- 
erned (Rom.  xiii.  1-7).  It  recognizes  the  individual  person  and  the 
organized  society  as  the  two  poles  through  which,  according  to  the 
Christian  law,  love  must  pass  in  order  to  complete  its  circuit  and  bring 
the  rights  of  the  individual  and  the  authority  of  the  State  into  har- 

*  Data  of  Ethics,  pp.  133,  134.    Chap.  viii. 

|  Die  Welt  als  EuUvickelung  des  Geistes ;  S.  112. 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION   FROM  EVOLUTION.  479 

mony.  And  this  harmony,  however  imperfectly  realized,  is  required 
from  the  beginning  and  through  all  the  conflicts  of  progressive  civiliza- 
tion as  the  unchanging  and  universal  law  of  God. 

Materialistic  evolution  breaks  down  in  attempting  to  complete  the 
circuit ;  it  knows  no  rights  either  of  the  individual  or  of  the  State  and 
leaves  their  interests  in  conflict  until  some  future  period  not  affecting 
the  interests  of  the  states  and  persons  now  existing,  and  therefore, 
according  to  the  materialistic  theory,  of  no  practical  concern  to  them. 
Materialistic  evolution  sweeps  away  the  Christian  conception  founded 
on  the  law  of  love,  and  carries  us  back  to  the  old  heathenish  concep- 
tion that  the  State  owes  no  duties  to  the  citizen  and  the  citizen  has  no 
rights  as  related  to  the  State.  This  is  the  same  theory  of  the  State 
which  Comte  reached  from  the  starting-point  of  complete  Positivism. 

Mr.  Spencer  finds  a  conflict  between  Egoism  and  Altruism.  He  re- 
cognizes the  existence  of  altruistic  instincts  both  in  man  and  the  brutes. 
He  also  teaches  that  altruistic  action  secures  a  return  of  sympathy  and 
help,  and  thus  conduces  to  the  advantage  and  consequently  to  the 
"  survival "  of  the  individual.  "With  great  clearness  and  force  he 
demonstrates  the  reciprocal  necessity  of  egoism  and  altruism  to  the 
well-being  both  of  the  individual  and  of  the  species,  and  points  out  the 
evils  necessarily  resulting  from  the  action  of  either  alone.  He  also 
indicates  a  progress  of  altruistic  enjoyment  by  the  survival  of  the  fit- 
test till  a  man  will  find  as  much  pleasure  in  serving  and  as  much  pain 
in  injuring  another  as  in  being  served  or  being  injured  himself;  and 
so  will  come  a  millenium  of  universal  love. 

But  altruism  and  egoism  present  themselves  to  him,  nevertheless,  as 
contradictory  principles,  and  he  discusses  at  length  their  possible  "  con- 
ciliation."* The  difficulty  is  a  serious  one  to  him  as  an  evolutionist, 
because  it  implies  two  contradictory  laws  of  nature,  each  fundamental 
in  the  very  constitution  of  the  universe,  the  law  of  egoism  that  it  is 
essential  to  the  survival  of  the  fittest  that  the  strong  crowd  out  or  crush 
the  weak,  and  the  law  of  altruism  that  it  is  essential  to  the  survival  of 
the  fittest  that  the  strong  protect  and  help  the  weak.  It  is  an  ethical 
contradiction  in  the  very  essence  of  evolution  since,  according  to  its 
laws,  that  which  increases  the  happiness  of  the  stronger  destroys  the 
happiness  of  the  weaker.  Christianity  finds  no  such  contradiction.  It 
recognizes  the  love  of  self  and  the  love  of  others  as  factors  in  universal 
love ;  it  commands  to  love  God  with  all  the  heart  and  our  neighbor  as 
o  it  >v* -elves.  Christ  presents  the  law  of  love  not  as  a  necessary  ?nd  uni- 
form sequence  of  nature,  but  as  a  law  of  supreme  reason  declaring  the 
duty  of  rational  free-agents  in  a  rational  and  moral  system.  The  par- 

*  Data  of  Ethics :  Chaps,  xi.-xiv. 


480  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL   BASIS   OF  THEISM. 

ticular  service  which  in  the  exercise  of  his  powers  a  man  must  render 
from  time  to  time  to  God,  to  particular  individuals  and  communities  of 
men,  and  to  himself,  he  must  determine  according  to  his  best  judgment 
in  view  of  their  reciprocal  relations  in  the  system  as  well  as  of  the 
circumstances  of  each  case.  Substitute  the  Christian  law  of  love 
for  the  materialistic  theory  and  all  antagonism  disappears.  Egoism 
and  altruism  are  not  the  names  of  wrong  and  right  character.  The 
Christian  law  of  love  requires  a  man  to  love  himself  equally  with  his 
neighbor  as  on  a  level  in  their  common  relation  to  God  and  having 
equal  rights  in  the  rational  system  of  which  God,  the  common  Father 
of  all,  is  the  head.  All  that  part  of  "  conduct "  in  which  a  man  pro- 
vides for  himself  and  his  own  family  may  be  as  really  a  manifestation 
of  universal  love  as  the  conduct  of  a  martyr  dying  in  fidelity  to  prin- 
ciple or  of  a  wealthy  man  distributing  his  thousands  to  endow  colleges 
or  to  spread  Christian  civilization.  Christianity  recognizes,  not  less 
than  Mr.  Spencer,  that  a  person  must  exist  before  he  can  act  and  must 
develop  his  own  powers  and  resources  in  order  to  the  more  effective 
service  of  others  and  of  society  as  a  whole.  It  admits  that,  in  this 
sense,  egoism  is  necessary  to  promote  the  interests  of  the  community, 
and  altruism  or  the  service  of  others  is  necessary  to  promote  the  welfare 
of  the  individual  rendering  the  altruistic  service.  As  already  observed, 
Christianity  has  taught  the  worth  of  the  individual,  the  sacredness  of 
his  rights,  the  equality  and  fraternity  of  men  in  their  relations  to  God, 
their  common  father,  and  has  made  these  ideas  powers  in  modern  civil- 
ization. It  has  also  taught  the  altruistic  and  self-sacrificing  aspect  of 
Christian  love.  It  has  taught  it  in  the  whole  life  and  work  -of  Christ 
and  has  made  it  a  power  in  civilization  wherever,  in  any  approxima- 
tion to  its  essential  character,  Christianity,  has  prevailed.  It  has  made 
Egoism  and  Altruism  coefficients  in  human  progress.  It  has  taught 
men  self-respect  and  self-reliance  and  aspiration  to  realize  their  highest 
ideal  of  human  perfection  even  in  the  humblest  sphere  and  surround- 
ings ;  and  has  taught  them  to  live  for  humanity  in  self-consecrating 
service.  It  has  taught  them  these  as  the  two  aspects  of  universal  love. 
Evolution  leaves  the  two  in  contradiction.  And  so,  in  the  practical 
application  of  the  theory  in  morals,  some,  like  Haeckel,  teach  the  law 
of  supreme  selfishness  as  the  only  ethical  teaching  of  evolution,  and 
so,  if  consistent,  must  admit  that  it  annihilates  all  moral  distinctions ; 
others  teach  a  one-sided  altruism,  implying  an  almost  mystical  doctrine 
of  self-annihilation ;  an  element  of  thought  which  seems  to  crop  out  in 
the  writings  of  George  Eliot. 

It  may  be  objected  that  Mr.  Spencer's  Ethics  ought  not  to  be  called 
materialistic.  He  believes  in  the  existence  of  an  Unknowable  Abso- 
lute, which  is  an  omnipresent  power,  transcending  both  matter  and 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  EVOLUTION.  481 

mind,  but  having  the  properties  which  account  for  both.  This  Un- 
knowable is  manifested  to  us  in  ail  that  we  know.  It  manifests  itself 
therefore  in  the  phenomena  of  mind  as  really  as  in  the  totally  different 
phenomena  of  matter.  But  Mr.  Spencer,  for  no  good  reason  which  I 
can  see,  and  inconsistently  with  the  requirements  of  his  own  agnos- 
ticism, arbitrarily  and  positively  excludes  the  existence  of  a  spiritual 
system  and  recognizes  only  the  evolution  of  a  system  of  mere  matter 
and  force.  In  his  Biology,  his  Psychology,  his  Data  of  Ethics,  and  his 
Sociology,  he  attempts  to  explain  all  facts  of  life,  mind,  personality  and 
morality  by  the  evolution  of  matter  and  force.  In  his  Data  of  Ethics 
is  no  recognition  of  will,  no  distinction  between  the  voluntary  and  the 
instinctive,  no  intimation  that  rationality  and  voluntariness  are  essen- 
tial to  moral  character  and  responsibility,  no  distinction  of  "  conduct " 
in  a  man  and  in  an  insect,  or  even  in  a  plant  or  stone ;  and  in  his 
account  of  the  Will  in  the  Psychology  he  explicitly  denies  its  freedom 
in  any  other  sense  than  freedom  from  external  hindrance  to  do  what 
one  desires  to  do — the  freedom  which  every  mouse  has  when  not  in  a 
trap ;  so  that  moral  "  conduct "  is  as  truly  predicable  of  a  mouse  as  of  a 
man.  Hence  he  gives  us,  as  he  himself  says,  a  "  presentation  of  moral 
conduct  in  physical  terms ;"  and  speaks  of  "that  redistribution  of 
matter  and  motion  constituting  evolution."  In  the  First  Principles  he 
avows  agnosticism.  In  his  other  works  he  makes  little  use  of  it  except 
sometimes  to  attempt  in  the  Unknowable  an  identification  of  matter 
with  mind,  of  motion  with  thought,  which  he  acknowledges  to  be  im- 
possible in  the  knowable.  He  disclaims  materialism.  His  disciples  for 
themselves  and  in  his  behalf  disclaim  materialism  with  some  indignation 
at  the  ignorance  of  those  who  impute  it  to  them.  But  why  should 
they  think  the  imputation  of  materialism  unjust  when  their  agnosticism 
becomes  dogmatic ;  when  it  affirms  that  the  evolution  through  w.hich 
alone  the  Unknowable  is  manifested  is  merely  "  the  redistribution  of 
matter  and  motion."  Materialism  can  hardly  be  only  "  a  working 
hypothesis  "  when  it  thus  dogmatizes. 

Fourthly,  materialistic  evolution  gives  no  motives  practically  effective 
in  deterring  from  what  the  common  conscience  of  man  forbids  as  wrong 
or  in  inciting  to  what  it  commands  as  right ;  or,  as  the  materialist  must 
say,  in  deterring  from  what  is  hurtful  to  society  and  inciting  to  what  is 
useful.  It  presents  no  religious  sanction,  no  moral  law,  no  sense  of 
obligation,  no  beauty  of  holiness,  no  dignity  of  virtue,  no  consciousness 
of  freedom  and  responsibility,  no  sense  of  ill-desert.  It  appeals  to  no 
motive  other  than  those  which  incite  the  brutes ;  it  recognizes  no  human 
virtue  different  from  that  of  the  brutes,  and  accustoms  men  to  justify 
their  conduct  by  appealing  to  the  actions  of  brutes.  Mr.  Spencer  says : 
"  Consider  the  relation  of  a  healthy  mother  to  a  healthy  infant.  .  .  . 


482  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

In  yielding  its  natural  food  to  the  child  the  mother  receives  gratifica- 
tion ;  and  to  the  child  there  conies  the  satisfaction  of  appetite 

The  act  is  jone  that  is  to  both  exclusively  pleasurable,  while  abstention 
entails  pain  on  both ;  and  it  is  consequently  of  the  kind  which  we 
here  call  absolutely  right."*  Evidently  the  action  of  a  cat  suckling 
her  kittens  is  in  the  same  sense  and  for  the  same  reasons  "  absolutely 
right."  Dr.  Van  Buren  Denslqw,  arguing  that  tne  law,  "  Thou  shalt 
not  steal,"  is  simply  a  command  enforced  by  the  strong  for  their  own 
good  on  the  weak,  says :  "  Universal  society  might  be  pictured,  for  the 
illustration  of  this  feature  of  the  moral  code,  as  consisting  of  two  sets 
of  swine,  one  of  which  is  in  the  clover  and  the  other  out.  The  swine 
that  are  in  the  clover  grunt, '  Thou  shalt  not  steal ;  put  up  the  bars.' 
The  swine  that  are  out  of  the  clover  grunt,  *  Did  you  make  the  clover  ? 
let  down  the  bars.'  '  Thou  shalt  net  steal '  is  a  maxim  impressed  by 
property  holders  on  non-property  holders.  .  .  .  No  one  would  say 
that  if  a  lion  lay  gorged  with  his  excessive  feast  amidst  the  scattered 
carcass  of  a  deer,  and  a  jaguar  or  a  hyena  stealthily  bore  away  a 
haunch  thereof,  the  act  of  the  hyena  was  less  virtuous  than  that  of  the 
lion.  How  does  the  case  of  two  bushmen,  between  whom  the  same  in- 
cident occurs,  differ  from  that  of  the  two  quadrupeds  ?  So  far  as  the 
irresistible  promptings  of  nature  may  be  said  to  constitute  a  divine  law, 
there  are  really  two  laws.  The  law  to  him  who  will  be  injured  by 
stealing  is, '  Thou  shalt  not  steal,'  meaning  thereby  thou  shalt  not  suffer 
another  to  steal  from  you.  The  law  of  him  who  cannot  survive  with- 
out stealing  is  simply,  '  Thou  shalt  in  stealing  avoid  being  detected.'  "f 
And  the  desire  of  happiness  is  not  a  motive  adequate  to  account  for 
all  that  the  world  admires  as  right  action  nor  a  criterion  by  which  to 
distinguish  it.  In  a  city  smitten  recently  with  yellow  fever,  when  all 
who-  could  were  fleeing,  a  young  salesman  in  a  drug  store  said  that  he 
was  entrusted  with  the  sale  of  drugs  for  the  sick,  and  he  would  not 
leave  his  post ;  he  remained  and  died.  When  General  Griffin  was  in 
command  of  the  military  sub-district  of  Texas,  with  head-quarters  at 
Galveston,  the  yellow  fever  became  epidemic  in  that  city.  By  the 
removal  of  his  superior  he  had  already  succeeded  to  the  temporary 
command  of  the  whole  district  and  was  ordered  to  remove  to  head- 
quarters at'  New  Orleans.  But  not  a  surgeon  was  left  for  duty  at  the 
post  at. Galveston;  the  superior  officers  were  down  with  the  fever;  the 
troops  were  dying  as  rapidly  as  the  citizens.  General  Griffin  tele- 
graphed to  Washington  for  permission  to  stay  at  Galveston  as  his  post 
of  duty  in  that  time  of  distress.  He  stayed  and  died.  A  person 

*  Data  of  Ethics,  §  102,  pp.  261,  262. 

|  Denslow's  Modern  Thinkers,  pp.  243,  244,  245. 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  EVOLUTION.  483 

poisoned  his  next  of  kin  who  was  heir  to  a  great  estate,  was  never 
suspected,  became  heir  to  the  estate,  and  lived  to  old  age  in  wealth 
and  luxury,  trusted  and  respected  by  all.  All  men  abhor  the  last  as 
a  criminal  and  honor  the  two  first  as  heroes.  Yet  if  the  desire  and 
attainment  of  happiness  are  the  essence  of  virtue,  there  is  no  ground 
for  this  discrimination.  And  according  to  the  theory  of  the  absolute 
virtue  of  a  happy  cat  and  kittens,  the  happy  murderer  was  virtuous  so 
far  as  the  murder  attained  for  him  a  life  of  happiness  and  abstention 
from  the  murder  would  have  prevented  it;  and  the  suffering  and 
dying  heroes  were  vicious  and  depraved  because  their  action  issued 
speedily  in  the  loss  of  their  own  lives  with  all  the  possible  happiness 
of  many  years,  and  therefore  gave  little  help  to  those  who  were 
suffering  around  them. 

Xor  does  this  theory  give  any  motive  for  deeds  which  the  world 
admires  as  heroic  virtue.  It  recognizes  no  motive  but  the  desire  of 
happiness.  How  can  that  impel  a  man  to  self-denial,  suffering  and 
death  either  to  make  other  people  happy,  or  to  obey  a  delusive  idea  of 
right,  empty  to  him  of  all  significance  ?  On  the  contrary  the  inference 
seems  to  be  logically  inevitable  that  the  self-sacrifice  for  others'  welfare, 
the  patriotic  offering  of  life  for  one's  country,  the  martyrdom  in  fidelity 
to  principle,  which  the  world  has  admired  as  the  highest  and  most 
heroic  virtue,  have  been  mistaken  and  foolish  actions  approved  in  this 
practical  age  only  by  doctrinaires  and  sentimentalists ;  that  even  the 
sufferings  and  death  of  Jesus  to  save  mankind  from  sin  were  the  mani- 
festation only  of  an  inconsiderate  enthusiasm.  And  opinions  looking 
towards,  if  not  explicitly  avowing  this  inference  are  already^promulgated. 

It  is  said  that,  after  ages  of  evolution,  altruistic  action  will  be  enjoyed 
by  future  men,  more  than  egoistic.  But  of  what  concern,  on  this  theory, 
is  the  happiness  of  generations  of  Altruists,  to  be  evolved  ten  thousand 
years  hence,  to  the  Egoists  who  are  living  now.  And  how  can  that  re- 
mote happiness  of  unknown  persons,  with  characters  strange  and  incom- 
prehensible to  the  Egoist,  be  a  motive  to  induce  him  to  sacrifice  his  own 
happiness  to  contribute  some  infinitesimal  amount  to  the  development 
of  them  and  their  enjoyment  ?  What  barrier  of  motive  does  this  theory 
set  up  against  any  act  deemed  by  the  common  conscience  of  man  to  be 
a  crime,  if  by  it  the  Egoist  thinks  he  can  promote  his  own  interest  ? 

Fifthly,  the  materialistic  theory  of  evolution  tends  to  break  down 
moral  law  and  order  and  to  give  free  course  to  the  worst  passions  of 
men. 

If  materialistic  evolution  becomes  generally  believed,  it  must  under- 
mine morality.  The  full  effect  would  not  be  immediate,  for  the  moral 
and  religious  education  of  the  present  generation  would  still  be  influen- 
tial ;  but  it  would  be  inevitable  in  the  near  future.  The  principles  of 


484  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

human  brotherhood  and  the  equal  rights  of  man  under  the  common 
fatherhood  of  God,  the  humane  virtues  and  the  spirit  of  self-sacrificing 
love  and  all  the  influences  with  which  Christianity  has  quickened  modern 
civilization  will  pass  away  in  its  collapse.  Enthusiasm  for  truth  and 
right  and  humanity  wTill  give  place  to  a  cold  and  clammy  expediency. 
There  will  be  no  more  place  for  the  high  appreciation  of  rectitude  and 
fidelity  to  principle  above  property,  and  pleasure,  and  life,  which  even 
the  heathen  have  had.  Juvenal  says : 

"  Esto  bonus  miles,  tutor  bonus,  arbiter  idem 
Integer ;  ambig-use  si  quando  citabere  testis 
Incertaeque  rei,  Phalaris  licet  imperet  ut  sis 
Falsus,  et  admoto  dictet  perjuria  tauro, 
Summum  crede  nefas  animara  prseferre  pudori 
Et  propter  vitam  vivendi  perdere  causas."    (Sat.  Viii.  79-84.) 

The  world  admires  these  sentiments  and  esteems  actions  accordant 
with  them  as  the  noblest  heroism.  But  there  is  no  place  for  them  in 
the  materialistic  ethics ;  it  must  pronounce  them  foolish  rather  than 
noble ;  for  according  to  that  ethics  the  only  "  causa  vivendi"  is  pleasure, 
and  there  is  no  conceivable  reason  why  a  man  should  sacrifice  his 
pleasure  for  any  idea  of  truth  and  right  or  for  the  promotion  of  the 
pleasure  of  others. 

Nor  is  it  merely  refined  sentiments  of  honor  and  right  which  will  dis- 
appear. The  sense  of  moral  responsibility  wrill  be  extinguished ;  man 
will  claim  as  his  right  what  he  gets  by  superior  force  or  cunning ;  success 
will  be  the  sufficient  justification  of  action  and  will  be  more  and  more 
worshiped  as  the  supreme  standard  and  ultimate  criterion  of  praise  and 
blame. 

It  is  a  serious  question  how  far  the  prevalence  of  this  materialism  is 
responsible  already  for  a  decay  of  virtue.  J.  S.  Mill  said,  "  The  chival- 
rous spirit  has  now-a-days  almost  disappeared  from  our  books  of  educa- 
tion. For  the  first  time  in  history  the  young  of  both  sexes  are  growing 
up  unromantic."  Mr.  Sumner's  anti-slavery  principles  are  now  spoken 
of  as  "  sentimental  politics."  "  When  the  second  Napoleon,  after  mount- 
ing his  uncle's  throne  by  the  unscrupulous  use  of  force,  rode  in  triumph 
into  London,  a  leading  English  journal  derided  the  morality  which  pro- 
tested against  paying  homage,to  a  success  achieved  by  treachery,  perjury 
and  massacre,  as  a  morality  of  Sunday-schools.  And  the  British  ambas- 
sador at  Constantinople  wrote  respecting  the  butchery  of  the  Bulgarians 
that  '  the  necessity  which  exists  for  England  to  prevent  changes  from 
occurring  in  Turkey  which  would  be  most  detrimental  to  ourselves,  is 
not  affected  by  the  question  whether  it  was  10,000  or  20,000  who 
perished.'  "  This  is  the  same  morality  of  force  which  is  expressed  in 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  EVOLUTION.  485 

the  words  of  Napoleon,  in  reply  to  some  remonstrance  as  to  the  number 
of  lives  which  his  wars  were  costing,  as  reported  by  Prince  Metternich, 
"  What  is  the  destruction  of  a  million  lives  to  a  man  like  me  ?" 

The  full  realization  of  the  practical  issues  of  this  materialistic  Hedon- 
ism will  not  be  visible  in  this  generation  trained  in  Christian  civiliza- 
tion ;  certainly  not  in  the  scientists  who  proclaim  it.  These  have  been 
highly  educated  in  Christian  schools ;  they  have  no  fear  as  to  the  means 
of  subsistence ;  their  honorable  position  in  society  is  insured ;  their  in- 
terest in  science  lifts  them  above  the  greed  of  gain  and  the  baser  sources 
of  enjoyment ;  and  for  the  most  part  they  are  not  seeking  to  destroy  the 
ideas  of  moral  law  and  right  but,  retaining  them,  to  find  a  philosophical 
basis  for  them  in  materialistic  evolution.  The  legitimate  results  can  be 
realized  only  in  a  generation  which  knows  only  the  new  ethics  as  the 
guide  of  conduct,  and  in  its  practical  application  to  life  by  uncultured 
men  struggling  for  subsistence,  greedy  of  gain  and  finding  their 
happiness  in  gratifying  the  baser  desires  and  appetites  of  human  nature. 
There  is  no  motive  in  this  hedonism  to  hold  such  men  back  from  reck- 
lessness of  all  rights  of  the  family,  of  property  and  of  life  which  stand 
in  the  way  of  their  own  pleasures. 

Already  we  see  men  less  imbued  by  education  with  Christian  moral 
sentiment,  who  have  brightness,  intelligence  and  power,  applying  the 
principles  of  the  new  ethics  to  the  subversion  of  all  moral  law,  obliga- 
tion and  order,  and  of  all  distinction  of  right  and  wrong.  Dr.  Denslow 
criticises  Spencer  as  unphilosophical  in  his  "  dogmatical  assumption  that 
there  is  a  moral  law  philosophically  deducible  by  argument  from  the 
facts  of  nature."  He  argues  correctly  that  on  Mr.  Spencer's  principles 
the  very  idea  of  moral  law  disappears.  "An  ethical  system  which  boils 
down  into  an  exhortation  to  all  men  to  promote  their  own  interests  has 
no  ethical  quality  left  in  it,"  He  attributes  Mr.  Spencer's  attempt  to 
retain  these  ethical  terms  and  ideas  to  his  having  "  been  so  far  impressed 
and  molded  in  his  thought  by  the  theological  atmosphere  of  modern 
Christianity."  I  have  already  quoted  Dr.  Denslow's  affirmations  that 
the  moral  laws  protecting  property  are  not  moral,  but  merely  class-laws 
enforced  by  the  superior  power  of  the  owners  of  property.  He  expresses 
the  same  opinion  respecting  the  moral  law  against  unchastity  and  against 
falsehood  and  deceit.  And  he  comes  to  the  conclusion  that  "  all  moral 
rules  are  in  the  first  instance  impressed  by  the  strong,  the  dominant, 
the  matured  and  the  successful  on  the  weak,  the  crouching,  the  infantile 
and  the  servile,  ....  and  are  doctrines  established  by  the  strong  for 
the  government  of  the  weak."*  Here  we  perceive  the  principles  of 
materialistic  ethics  already  carried  out  to  their  legitimate  practical  con- 

*  Modern  Thinkers,  pages  240,  242,  245,  247,  249. 


4&6  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

sequences,  the  denial  of  the  reality  of  moral  law  and  obligation  and  of 
the  distinction  of  right  and  wrong. 

The  extreme  practical  application  of  these  principles  has  made  com- 
paratively little  progress  in  this  country.  On  the  continent  of  Europe 
materialistic  evolution  is  laid  hold  of  as  the  support  of  atheistic  theories 
propounded  as  the  basis  of  the  immediate  reorganization  of  society  and 
proposing  radical  and  revolutionary  schemes  which  if  carried  out  can 
issue  only  in  anarchy.  M.  Gustave  Flourens  says :  "  Our  enemy  is  God. 
Hatred  of  God  is  the  beginning  of  wisdom.  If  men  would  make  true 
progress  it  must  be  on  the  basis  of  atheism."  The  same  is  the  doctrine 
of  the  Nihilists.  Michael  Bakunin,  sometimes  called  the  father  of  nihil- 
ism, in  a  speech  at  Geneva  in  1868  said:  "The  old  world  must  be 
destroyed  and  replaced  by  a  new  one.  It  is  our  mission  to  destroy  the 
lie.  The  beginning  of  all  lies  which  have  ground  down  this  poor  old 
world  is  God.  .  .  Tear  out  of  your  hearts  the  belief  in  the  existence  of 
God ;  for  as  long  as  an  atom  of  that  silly  superstition  remains  in  your 
minds,  you  will  never  know  what  freedom  is.  ...  The  second  lie  is 
Right.  Might  invented  the  fiction  of  Right  in  order  to  insure  and 
strengthen  her  reign.  ...  Might  forms  the  sole  groundwork  of 
society.  .  .  .  And  when  you  have  freed  your  minds  from  these.  .  . 
then  all  the  remaining  chains  which  bind  you,  and  which  are  called 
science,  civilization,  property,  marriage,  morality  and  justice  will  snap 
asunder.  Let  your  own  happiness  be  your  only  law.  But  in  order  to 
get  this  law  recognized  and  to  bring  about  the  proper  relations  which 
should  exist  between  the  majority  and  the  minority  of  mankind,  you 
must  destroy  every  thing  which  now  exists  in,  the  shape  of  a  State  or 
social  organization."  And  the  drift  of  all  materialistic  theories  is  in 
this  direction. 

"  111  n'est  point  de  vertus,  ne  de  vices ; 
Sois  tigre,  si  tu  peux.    Pourvu  que  tu  jouisses, 
Vis,  n'importe  comment  pour  finir,  n'importe  oil." 

Sixthly,  whatever  ethical  theories  are  adopted,  man's  conscience  and 
moral  intuitions  and  feelings  remain.  Ethics  legitimately  derived  from 
materialistic  evolution  is  incompatible  with  this  fact  of  man's  constitu- 
tion and  cannot  account  for  it.  Whatever  theories  are  adopted,  the 
consciousness  of  responsibility  and  obligation,  and  more  or  less  clearly 
of  the  law  of  love,  will  assert  itself.  This  also  materialists  themselves 
admit  when  they  affirm  that  our  moral  convictions  and  impulses  are 
independent  of  Christianity,  of  Theism,  or  of  Materialism ;  and  that 
whether  the  soul  exists  after  death  or  not,  we  are  bound  to  live 
righteously  here  and  now.  This  is  a  real  though  it  may  be  an  un- 
witting recognition  of  intuitive  morals.  To  this  moral  consciousness 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  EVOLUTION.  487 

of  mankind  we  appeal  in  judging  of  the  moral  tendency  of  material- 
ism. The  question  is  not  whether  man  has  a  moral  constitution,  for 
that  is  an  incontrovertible  fact.  The  question  is,  does  materialistic 
evolution  explain  or  account  for  this  fact  ?  Is  it  even  compatible  with 
this  fact  ?  If  not,  it  is  the  materialistic  evolution  which  is  proved 
untrue,  not  the  moral  constitution  of  man  which  is  proved  unreal. 
And  then,  if  materialistic  evolution  prevails,  it  carries  with  it  the 
denial  of  true  morality,  and  is  not  merely  a  question  of  scientific 
speculation  but  is  a  false  speculation  which  is  contrary  to  good  morals. 
Mr.  Spencer  explains  this  intuitive  perception  of  right  and  wrong  by 
alleging  that  "  the  doctrine  of  innate  powers  of  moral  perception  be- 
comes congruous  with  the  utilitarian  doctrine,  when  it  is  seen  that 
preferences  and  aversions  are  rendered  organic  by  inheritance  of  the 
effects  of  pleasurable  and  painful  experiences  in  progenitors."*  But 
this  could  explain  only  pain  and  pleasure,  not  that  essentially  different 
reality,  the  intuition  of  moral  obligation.  And  an  organic  "  cohesion  " 
of  pain  with  wrong  doing  would  not  result  unless  during  the  long  suc- 
cession of  savage  ancestors  every  act  of  robbery  and  of  killing  had 
been  attended  with  an  overplus  of  pain.  Whereas  in  fact  savages 
only  exult  in  such  deeds.  The  chief  who  killed  and  ate  his  rival  and 
made  one  of  his  marrow-bones  into  a  trumpet  with  which  to  sound 
his  own  triumph,  was  not  organizing  a  coherence  of  pain  with  killing 
and  cannibalism. 

Mr.  Spencer's  error  is  that  he  makes  no  distinction  between  a  law 
or  invariable  sequence  of  nature  and  the  moral  law.  He  holds  that 
the  law  of  right  conduct  is  grounded  in  the  nature  of  things,  that 
is,  in  the  constitution  of  the  universe.  In  proof  he  argues  that,  while 
in  sensitive  life  from  the  beginning  the  strong  crowd  out  the  weak 
that  stand  in  their  way,  and  man  from  his  first  appearance  till  now 
has  been  necessarily  egoistic,  yet  in  the  ages  of  the  future  he  will  more 
and  more  learn  that  his  own  welfare  is  promoted  by  promoting  the 
welfare  of  society  and  will  come  to  find  his  happiness  in  serving  others 
equally  with  himself;  then  human  evolution  will  go  on  according  to 
the  new  law  that  the  strong  ought  to  protect  and  help  the  weak.  But 
this  evolution  alike  in  its  egoistic  and  its  altruistic  stages  is  a  pro- 
cess of  nature  going  on  necessarily  in  invariable  sequence  of  physical 
cause  and  effect.  It  is  no  more  moral  action  than  the  falling  of  stones 
or  the  growth  of  grass.  In  the  whole  discussion  Mr.  Spencer  recog- 
nizes no  moral  law,  but  simply  sets  forth  a  necessary  and  invariable 
sequence  of  nature  as  a  substitute  for  moral  law ;  consequently  in  prov- 
ing that  the  evolution  must  issue  ages  hence  in  a  sort  of  equilibration 

*  Data  of  Ethics,  p.  124. 


488  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

of  egoism  and  altruism,  he  presents  no  moral  restraint  of  vice  or  in- 
citement to  virtue  capable  of  exerting  the  slightest  influence  on  the 
still  egoistic  man.  And  this  is  the  rock  on  which  all  materialistic 
theories  of  ethics  are  wrecked,  that  they  can  deal  only  with  laws  of 
nature  and  the  happiness  found  in  necessarily  following  the  impulses 
of  nature ;  and  thus  cannot  attain  a  moral  law  nor  even  the  idea  of 
right  and  wrong. 

In  one  respect,  however,  the  result  of  Mr.  Spencer's  investigations 
is  valuable.  In  a  former  chapter  I  showed  that  man  knows  by  ex- 
perience and  observation  that  the  law  of  love  is  supreme.  Mr.  Spen- 
cer demonstrates  that  the  law  of  love  is  the  ultimate  ground  of  the 
law  of  nature  and  the  reign  of  love  its  ultimate  issue  and  end.  He 
already  knows  the  unknowable  to  be  Power.  Here  he  demonstrates 
that  it  is  Love ;  and  therefore  God ;  for  God  is  love. 

5.  Materialistic  evolution  not  only  fails  to  account  for  the  facts  of 
personality,  but  is  found  to  issue  in  the  submergence  of  personality 
in  unconsciousness  and  of  voluntary  action  in  automatic.  Mr.  Spen- 
cer says :  "  When  actions  which  were  once  incoherent  and  voluntary 
are  very  frequently  repeated,  they  become  coherent  and  involuntary. 
Just  as  any  set  of  psychical  changes  originally  displaying  Memory, 
Reason  and  Feeling  cease  to  be  conscious,  rational  and  emotional,  as 
fast  as  by  repetition  they  grow  closely  organized ;  so  do  they  at  the 
same  time  pass  beyond  the  range  of  volition.  Memory,  Reason, 
Feeling  and  Will  disappear  in  proportion  as  psychical  changes  become 
automatic."*  Mr.  Lewes  says :  "  In  instinct  there  is  not  intelligence, 
but  what  was  once  intelligence ;  the  specially  intelligent  character  has 
disappeared  in  the  fixed  tendency.  The  action  which  formerly  was 
tentative,  discriminative,  has  now  become  automatic  and  irresistible." 
He  calls  it  "  lapsed  intelligence.'^  The  doctrine  of  these  and  other 
evolutionists  is  that  the  infant  is  born  with  a  fund  of  experience,  regis- 
tered in  the  organism  and  transmitted  by  heredity,  constituting  in- 
stinctive tendencies  and  manifested  in  automatic  actions.  "  When  the 
adjustments  of  the  organism  to  its  environment  begin  to  take  in  in- 
volved and  infrequent  groups  of  outer  relations  ....  then  there 
come  to  be  hesitating  automatic  actions;  then  Memory  and  Reason 
simultaneously  become  nascent."J  But  by  continued  repetition  these 
actions  gradually  become  automatic,  and  reason,  memory,  will  and 
feeling  lapse  into  instinct,  and  their  action  goes  on  in  unconsciousness. 
The  evolution  therefore  seems  to  be  the  continual  transition  from 
conscious  intelligence,  feeling  and  will  to  instinct ;  from  the  rational, 

*  Psychology.     Vol.  I.,  g  218,  p.  499. 

f  Problems  of  Self  and  Mind.     First  Series.     Vol.  I.,  pp.  120,  130. 

j  Spencer's  Psychology.     Vol.  I.,  pp.  479, 480,  456. 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  EVOLUTION.  489 

the  free,  the  personal,  the  moral  to  the  instinctive,  the  automatic,  the 
unconscious  and  the  necessary.  When  "adjustment"  becomes  com- 
plete all  conscious  rationality,  intelligence,  free-will  and  feeling  dis- 
appear and  the  highest  result  of  evolution  is  the  relapse  of  a  person 
conscious  of  rationality  and  free-will,  of  moral  and  religious  character 
and  happiness,  into  a  senseless  automaton  acting  in  unconsciousness 
and  necessity. 

Accordingly  personality  and  consciousness  in  any  form .  are  merely 
transitory  conditions  of  human  existence.  Sooner  or  later,  as  the 
evolution  continues  from  generation  to  generation,  the  adjustment  of 
the  organism  to  the  environment  must  become  complete.  Then  all 
conscious  intelligence,  feeling  and  volition  will  have  lapsed  into  in- 
stinct, and  thenceforward '  man  is  a  mere  automaton,  moved  in  the 
courses  of  nature  as  necessarily  and  as  unconsciously  as  the  planets  in 
their  orbits  or  the  atoms  in  an  explosion  of  gunpowder. 

This  result  of  evolution  in  the  sphere  of  consciousness  is  analogous 
to  its  predicted  result  in  the  sphere  of  unconscious  matter.     In  the 
latter  the  evolution  must  issue  in  complete  equilibrium,  which  means 
the  cessation  of  all  motion  whether  molar  or  molecular.     In  the  for- 
mer it  must  issue  in  the  complete  adjustment  of  organism  to  environ- 
ment, which  means  the  cessation  of  all  conscious  intelligence,  feeling 
and  volition.     This  appeal's  to  be  a  sort  of  reductio  ad  absurdum.     The 
evolution  of  mind  by  the  redistribution  of  matter  and  motion  reveals 
itself  as  impossible  by  its  necessary  issue  in  the  complete  extinction  of 
mind  and  of  all  mental  phenomena.     Prof.  Fiske,  in  behalf  of  Mr. 
Spencer,  indignantly  disclaims  the  belief  that  mental  phenomena  are 
correlated  with  motion  and  identical  with  it,  so  that  motion  is  trans- 
formed  into   thought   and   thought   transformed   back   into   motion ; 
and  disclaims  the  materialism  involved  in  it.     But  Mr.  Spencer,  in 
explaining  intelligence,  feeling  and  volition  as  always  lapsing  into  in- 
stinct and  disappearing  in  unconscious  registration,  really  accepts  the 
belief  and  must  logically  accept  the  materialism  involved  in  it.     Ac- 
cordingly he  says :  "Any  hesitation  to  admit  that,  between  the  physical 
forces  and  the  sensations  there  exists  a  correlation  like  that  between 
the  physical  forces  themselves,  must  disappear  on  remembering  how 
the  one  relation  like  the  other  is  not  qualitative  only,  but  quantita- 
tive."*    And  what  he  here  says  of  sensation  he  assumes,  in  his  sub- 
sequent works,   to  be    true  of  all    phenomena   of  mind  and  person- 
ality.    But  by  what  metrical  scale  he  measures  the  quantity  of  thought, 
feeling  or  volition  is  not  apparent. 

The  facts  on  which  this  theory  of  lapsed  intelligence  rests  are  well 

*  First  Principles,  §  82,  p.  275. 


490  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

known.  By  continual  repetition  a  muscular  action  becomes  second- 
arily automatic ;  and  in  proportion  as  it  becomes  so,  the  consciousness 
of  thought  and  volition  is  less.  For  instance,  the  art  of  walking  is 
learned  slowly  and  with  many  falls ;  but  when  one  who  has  learned  it 
starts  to  walk,  the  walking  goes  on  with  scarcely  any  consciousness  of 
exertion  or  direction;  but  when  the  walker  becomes  tired  this  con- 
sciousness returns.  And  the  more  completely  the  mechanism  of  the 
body  is  by  repetition  made  to  act  mechanically,  the  more  exact  and  un- 
erring is  the  movement ;  for  mechanism  cannot  forget,  nor  mistake, 
nor  hesitate,  and  within  its  sphere  is  more  accurate  than  the  conscious 
action  of  a  man.  A  person  walking  in  sleep  will  walk  safely  where  he 
could  not  if  awake.  And  one  cannot  play  an  instrument  well  till  the 
fingers  seem  to  move  of  themselves  on  the  keys. 

But  these  secondarily  automatic  courses  of  action  are  started  by 
the  mind  and  carried  on  under  its  general  direction ;  as  we  see  the 
instantaneous  action  of  thought  and  will  in  the  instant  of  a  difficulty 
or  interruption.  And  the  secondarily  automatic  action  of  the  muscles, 
instead  of  suppressing  intelligence  and  voluntary  action,  leaves  the  mind 
at  leisure  for  other  activities.  Walking  is  favorable  for  thinking. 

In  fact  instead  of  intelligence  lapsing,  this  lapse  of  the  action  of  the 
organism  into  the  automatic  indicates  in  a  striking  way  the  difference 
between  the  mechanism  of  the  body'and  the  higher  activities  of  the 
spirit.  When  the  spirit  is  in  its  highest  activities  of  thought,  feeling 
or  determination,  the  body  with  its  movements  and  conditions  lapses 
from  consciousness,  but  the  spirit,  instead  of  being  submerged  in  the 
organic,  seems  to  be  rapt  away  from  it  and  rises  to  its  utmost  intensity 
of  action.  This  is  exemplified  in  love ;.  as  a  mother  forgets  her  own 
weariness  and  pain  in  the  care  of  a  sick  child ;  and  as  Paul  counted 
all  things  but  loss  for  Christ.  It  is  recognized  in  ethics  that  the  cate- 
goric imperative  of  conscience  may  be  outstripped  by  love.  A  being 
in  whom  love  to  God  and  man  is  perfect  will  act  from  love  before  he 
thinks  of  duty ;  following  inclination  he  will  do  right,  for  his  inclina- 
tion is  love.  But  the  love  is  not  unconscious  automatic  action,  but  is 
the  intensest  energy  of  the  spirit,  suffusing  it  with  blessedness.  The 
same  is  exemplified  in  intellectual  action.  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  intent  on 
his  great  problems,  was  oblivious  of  all  else,  even  of  his  needed  food. 
But  this  was  not  a  lapse  into  automatic  action,  nor  into  unconscious- 
ness. It  was  the  highest  and  most  intense  intellectual  action  in  the 
concentration  of  all  his  energies  on  his  work.  That  it  was  accompanied 
by  consciousness  is  evident  because  he  remembered  his  work  and  its 
results.  It  was  the  highest  exaltation  of  spiritual  power,  holding  in 
subjection  and  abeyance  for  the  time  all  bodily  appetites  and  all  out- 
ward influences. 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  EVOLUTION.  491 

6.  Thus  it  appears  that  materialistic  evolution  is  entirely  incompati- 
ble with*  the  fundamental  facts  of  personality  and  is  thereby  demon- 
strated to  be  unscientific  and  false.  It  also  appears  that  materialism 
is  not  an  essential  element  in  the  theory  of  evolution.  The  theory, 
held  simply  as  declaring  a  law  of  nature  within  the  limits  of  physical 
science,  is  consistent  with  the  personality  of  man  and  of  God,  and 
strengthens  rather  than  destroys  the  evidence  in  nature  of  the  directive 
action  of  mind. 

In  Sir  Isaac  Xewton's  day  the  fear  that  the  law  of  gravitation  would 
lead  to  atheism  was  as  real  as  is  "the  fear  of  the  theory  of  evolution 
now.  Even  so  late  as  Newton's  time,  the  celebrated  Puritan  divine, 
Dr.  John  Owen,  says  of  the  Copernican  astronomy:  "The  late  hypo- 
thesis, fixing  the  sun  as  the  centre  of  the  world,  was  built  on  fallible 
phenomena  and  advanced  by  many  arbitrary  presumptions  against 
evident  testimonies  of  Scripture  and  reason  as  probable  as  any  that 
are  produced  in  its  confirmation."*  "  Mr.  Home,  Bishop  of  Norwich^ 
was  always  convinced  that  Sir  Isaac  Xewton  and  Dr.  Clarke  had,  by 
introducing  speculations  of  their  own,  formed  a  design  to  undermine 
and  overthrow  the  theology  of  the  Scriptures  and  to  bring  in  the  Stoical 
aniina  inundi  in  the  place  of  the  true  God ;  that  heathenism  was  about 
to  arise  in  the  world  out  of  their  speculations  in  natural  philosophy. 
This  suspicion  took  early  possession  of  the  bishop's  mind  and  was  not 
changed  or  shaken  through  life."f  This  exemplifies  the  perverse  pro- 
pensity of  men  when  they  know  how  anything  in  nature  is  done,  to 
think  that  there  is  no  longer  any  need  of  a  God  for  the  doing  of  it. 
The  fears  respecting  gravitation  were  groundless,  and  the  knowledge 
of  that  law  enlarged  our  evidence  of  the  reign  of  mind  in  nature.  The 
same  will  doubtless  be  true  of  evolution,  if  it  shall  be  scientifically  es- 
tablished as  a  law  of  nature. 

V.  Scientific  evolution  at  every  stage  in  its  progress  reveals  the 
presence  and  energy  of  a  supernatural  and  hypermaterial  power. 

1.  This  is  implied  in  the  meaning  of  evolution  as  set  forth  in  the 
teachings  of  scientists. 

If  we  admit  that  the  physical  organization  of  man  is  the  result  of 
evolution,  that  admission  is  consistent  with  the  personality  of  man.  It 
is  not  good  reasoning  that  there  is  nothing  in  a  mature  man  which  was 
not  in  the  ovum  at  its  impregnation.  If  the  physical  organization  of 
man  was  evolved  from  an  ascidian,  and  the  ascidian  itself  from  in- 
organic matter,  it  is  not  good  reasoning  that  there  is  nothing  in  the 
mature  man  which  was  not  in  the  ascidian  and  in  the  inorganic  matter 

I 

*  Owen's  Works.    Vol.  XIX.,  p.  310. 

f  Home's  Life,  quoted  in  Anna  Se ward's  Letters,  Vol.  VI.,  pp.  267,  268 ;  Letter  47. 


492  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

from  which  the  ascidian  was  evolved.  For  if  this  reasoning  is  con- 
clusive, wTherein  does  man  differ  from  the  ascidian  and  what  significance 
is  there  in  evolution  ?  What  man  is,  we  know  by  consciousness  and  ob- 
servation. If  evolution  is  to  account  for  him,  it  must  account  for  him 
as  he  is  and  is  known  to  be.  We  must  not  strip  him  of  his  highest 
powers  and  reduce  him  to  the  level  of  inorganic  matter  in  order  to 
accommodate  him  to  the  insufficiency  of  a  materialistic  evolution.  On 
the  contrary,  the  appearance  in  man  of  powers  transcending  all  which 
nature  reveals  is  entirely  accordant  with  scientific  evolution.  Evolu- 
tion as  actually  held  by  scientists  is  not  merely  a  disentanglement  and 
rearrangement  of  matter  and  force,  but  in  its  essential  significance 
it  is,  at  every  successive  stage,  the  revelation,  in  effects  impossible  in  the 
stuff  before  the  evolution,  of  powers  higher  than  ever  before  manifested. 
This  revelation  of  a  higher  power  in  the  successive  stages  of  evolu- 
tion, and  especially  of  personal  powers  at  the  appearance  of  man,  is 
incompatible  with  every  materialistic  theory  of  evolution;  unless,  as 
Prof.  Tyndall  intimates  in  his  melancholy  meditations  on  the  Matter- 
horn,  we  give  an  entirely  new  meaning  to  the  word  matter ;  or,  as  Prof. 
Fiske  more  accurately  expresses  it,  use  words  "  which  it  is  difficult  to 
invest  with  any  real  meaning."  In  this  case  we  go  back  to  the  idea  of 
evolution  as  the  mere  disentanglement  of  matter  and  force  as  it  already 
existed.  But  the  theory  of  evolution,  as  true  science  must  present  it 
and  actually  does  present  it,  requires,  in  its  essential  significance,  the 
admission  that  new  powers  are  revealed  in  the  successive  stages  of  evo- 

•i.  O 

lution,  and  that  in  man,  when  he  appears,  powers  are  revealed  which 
were  never  manifested  in  the  species  of  animals  from  which  he  was 
evolved.  Evolution  is  thus  compatible  with  the  powers  of  personality 
in  man ;  and  it  is  also  incompetent  to  deny  that  these  powers,  never 
manifested  in  nature  until  man  appeared,  are  spiritual  powers,  trans- 
cending all  that  we  know  as  forces  of  matter.  "  The  idea  that  the 
human  species  at  its  origin  abuts  on  something  both  higher  and  lower, 
seems  almost  a  necessity  of  reason — on  the  matrices  of  a  lower  life  in 
its  selected  forms  on  the  natural  side,  and  on  the  paternal  side  on 
nothing  less  than  the  brooding  Spirit  of  God.  .  .  .  Every  new  type  of 
life  draws  up  into  itself  the  next  lower  one,  and  something  more.  .  .  . 
And  that  something  more  comes  from  above  nature,  unless  the  stream 
can  mount  higher  than  its  source,  and  unless  all  our  talk  about  the 
nexus  of  cause  and  effect  is  without  meaning."* 

The  incompetence  of  evolution  to  justify  the  denial  of  the  spiritual 
or  supernatural  in  man  is  evident  from  the  contradictions  in  which  the 
denier  is  involved.  He  holds  that  there  is  nothing  in  nature  corres- 

*  Dr.  Sears :  Fourth  Gospel :  p.  227. 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  EVOLUTION.  493 

ponding  to  the  human  mind,  and  yet.  that  man  is  a  product  of  nature. 
He  knows  that  mental  phenomena  cannot  be  identified  with  the  motion 
of  matter,  and  yet  insists  that  there  is  nothing  in  man  but  matter  and 
motor-force.  He  insists  that  man  is  one  with  everything  in  nature  that 
is  inferior  to  his  higher  powers,  and  that  there  is  nothing  in  nature  that 
is  one  with  man's  higher  powers ;  and  then  disregards  those  higher 
human  powers  as  entitled  to  no  scientific  recognition.  The  denial 
carries  contradiction  into  the  very  idea  of  science  and  into  the  lan- 
guage in  which  evolution  is  described.  The  very  possibility  of  science 
consists  in  the  possibility  of  reducing  all  physical  phenomena  to  purely 
mental  conceptions.  Evolution  itself  is  a  mental  conception  and  its 
progressiveness  is  conceivable  and  thinkable  only  as  measured  by  men- 
tal standards.  Says  Tyndall:  "The  continued  effort  of  animated 
nature  is  to  improve  its  condition  and  raise  itself  to  a  loftier  level ; " 
but  lower  and  loftier  levels  in  biology  have  no  meaning  in  terms  of 
matter  and  force.  Says  Spencer :  "  Life  is  the  continuous  adjustment 
of  internal  relations  to  external  relations."  Adjustment  is  an  intel- 
lectual act.  Scientists  habitually  speak  of  potential  energy,  the  recog- 
nition of  which  is  at  the  basis  of  modern  science ;  but  it  is  an  entirely 
anthropomorphic  expression,  derived  from  our  own  consciousness  of 
power  which  we  do  not  exert ;  of  exerting  energy  or  refraining  from 
its  exertion  at  will. 

2.  If  mind  is  to  act  through  matter,  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that 
matter  must  be  specially  prepared  to  be  its  organ.  Not  matter  in  every 
condition  can  be  the  organ  of  mind,  but  only  matter  which  has  been 
fitted  by  special  refinement  and  elaboration.  And  if  so,  then  it  is  im- 
possible to  say  a  priori  through  what  processes  matter  must  pass  in 
order  to  be  thus  fitted,  nor  how  long  the  process  may  continue.  In 
the  period  of  a  few  months  a  germ  is  evolved  into  the  body  of  a  human 
infant  capable  so  long  as  it  lives  of  being  the  organ  of  mind  and  re- 
vealing the  powers  of  personality.  If  we  suppose  that,  preparatory  to 
the  origination  of  the  human  species,  matter  must  have  been  in  a 
process  of  elaboration  and  refinement  through  periods  not  of  months 
but  of  ages  and  through  successive  higher  and  higher  species  of  living 
organisms,  in  order  to  fit  it  to  become  the  germ  of  a  human  being  and 
to  unfold  into  an  organ  through  which  the  powers  of  personality  should 
be  manifested,  this  origin  of  the  species  is  no  more  incompatible  with 
the  personality  of  man  than  is  the  development  of  the  individual  from 
a  germ  in  generation.  We  are  told  in  Genesis  that  "the  Lord  God 
formed  man  of  the  dust  of  the  ground."  There  is  no  significance  in 
this,  except  as  it  recognizes  a  process  by  which  the  inferior  material 
was  fitted  and  formed  into  an  organization  capable  of  manifesting  the 
life  of  a  human  spirit.  And,  far  as  the  thought  may  have  been  from 


494  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

the  writer  of  Genesis,  ages  may  have  passed  in  the  process  of  elaborat- 
ing the  dust  of  the  earth  into  the  body  of  a  man.  The  fact  that  it 
was  a  process  which  occupied  time  however  long,  and  proceeded  accord- 
ing to  the  laws  and  by  means  of  the  energies  of  an  already  existing 
nature,  does  not  make  it  the  less  a  work  of  God. 

3.  If  the  human  species  was  evolved  from  inferior  species,  the  mani- 
festation of  mind  through  a  material  organization  would  accord  with  a 
universal  law,  that  matter  already  manifesting  certain  powers  must 
pass  through  a  process  of  elaboration  or  development  in  order  to  be- 
come susceptible  of  manifesting  a  higher  power. 

Uncrystallized  matter,  when  brought  into  a  certain  condition,  crys- 
tallizes. Here  is  revealed  a  force  of  a  new  and  higher  order,  domi- 
nating cohesion  and  arranging  the  atoms  in  a  crystalline  structure. 
But  there  must  have  been  a  process  preparing  the  matter  before  the 
crystallizing  force  could  reveal  itself.  A  vegetable  cannot  be  nour- 
ished by  elemental  substances.  If  furnished  with  oxygen,  carbon  and 
all  the  elemental  constituents  of  its  organization,  it  cannot  appropriate 
them.  They  must  be  united  in  compounds  before  they  can  be  con- 
verted by  the  plant  into  its  own  substance  and  thus  become  the  medium 
of  manifesting  the  power  of  vegetable  life.  An  animal  cannot  be 
nourished  by  inorganic  matter,  simple  or  compound.  It  can  live  only 
on  organized  matter,  either  vegetable  or  animal.  Matter  must  be 
already  elaborated  to  this  very  high  degree  before  it  can  be  incorpo- 
rated into  an  animal  organization  and  become  capable  of  manifesting 
the  force  of  animal  vitality. 

The  evolution  or  progress  of  nature  discloses  something  like  this  as  a 
universal  law.  Matter  must  be  elaborated  into  finer  contexture  and 
more  complicated  adjustments  before  it  can  be  the  medium  of  revealing 
the  presence  and  action  of  power  of  a  higher  order,  previously  un- 
manifested.  Inorganic  matter  was  elaborated  in  the  laboratory  of 
nature  for  myriads  of  centuries  before  any  portion  of  it  was  brought 
into  a  state  in  which  it  was  possible  that  the  power  of  organic  life 
could  reveal  itself  in  action.  And  organic  matter  Avas  elaborated 
through  long  periods  before  it  was  capable  of  being  the  medium  through 
which  animal  life  could  appear.  And  again  it  was  evolving  for  long 
periods  and  appearing  in  successive  and  higher  forms  of  animal  [organi- 
zation before  the  higher  personal  and  spiritual  power  could  reveal 
itself  in  action  through  it. 

If  so,  the  elaboration  is  not  yet  completed,  but  may  go  on  till  higher 
orders  of  mind,  angels  and  archangels  rising  in  endless  gradations  of 
power  and  glory,  may  manifest  their  presence,  and  an  unseen  and 
spiritual  universe  come  to  view,  which  as  yet  eye  hath  not  seen,  nor  ear 
heard,  nor  the  heart  of  man  conceived. 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  EVOLUTION.  495 

The  existence  of  the  soul  after  death  would  still  be  credible  and  in 
fact  more  easily  conceived.  Once  admit  that  matter  is  perpetually 
passing  through  a  process  of  evolution  making  it  susceptible  of  being 
the  medium  of  manifesting  higher  and  higher  powers,  and  the  Scrip- 
.tural  doctrine  of  existence  after  death,  and  of  the  spiritual  body,  is 
accordant  with  this  line  of  thought.  To  what  extent  the  evolution  may 
be  carried  and  what  higher  powers  it  may  become  capable  of  revealing 
no  one  can  predict.  The  spiritual  body,  as  described  in  the  Bible,  is  a 
conceivable  result. 

4.  Accordingly  we  find  in  nature  a  series  of  planes  or  grades  one 
above  another,  each  revealing  a  power  never  manifested  in  a  grade 
below.  And  if  the  theory  of  evolution  is  true,  the  appearance  of  each 
of  these  powers  constituted  an  epoch  in  the  evolution. 

Mr.  Spencer  postulates  a  homogeneous  stuff  antecedent  to  the  evolu- 
tion. The  "  homogeneous "  is  a  metaphysical  idea ;  so  also  is  Mr. 
Thomson's  primitive  fluid.  Each  is  an  intellectual  postulation  of  being 
in  a  mode  of  existence  transcending  all  human  experience  and  incon- 
ceivable by  man.  The  theistic  conception  of  the  universe  as  eternally 
ideal  and  archetypal  in  God  the  Absolute  Keason  is  scarcely  farther 
removed  from  matter  as  we  know  it ;  and  is  conceivable  as  an  object  of 
positive  knowledge  through  our  knowledge  of  personality.  The  theistic 
conception,  however,  does  not  preclude  the  postulation  of  a  homoge- 
neous stuff  or  primitive  fluid  as  the  first  mode  of  the  existence  of 
matter.  The  being  of  physical  agents  must  always,  in  the  order  of 
thought,  be  antecedent  to  their  action. 

In  the  homogeneous  stuff  mechanical  force  is  revealed  in  motion, 
both  in  its  beginning  and  its  continuance,  and  whether  molar  or  mole- 
cular. It  appears  as  attraction  and  repulsion,  tension  and  pressure, 
and  as  momentum.  This  is  the  first  epoch  in  the  evolution ;  in  it 
matter  is  known,  in  the  lowest  grade  in  which  it  is  perceptible,  as  mani- 
festing mechanical  force,  in  the  motions  both  of  masses  and  of  mole- 
cules. In  the  latter,  mechanical  force  seems  to  reach  its  highest  form, 
as  in  heat,  light  and  electricity. 

A  higher  grade  reveals  the  elemental  or  chemical  forces.  The 
elemental  substances  by  their  combinations  reveal  new  and  higher 
powers  with  more  complicated  activities  and  relations.  Oxygen  and 
hydrogen  each  has  powers  peculiar  to  itself,  but  revealed  only  in  com- 
bining with  other  substances ;  water,  which  is  the  result  of  their  com- 
bination with  each  other,  reveals  new  and  peculiar  powers,  unlike  those 
of  its  component  elements. 

A  grade  higher  than  these  is  that  of  living  organic  matter.  And 
above  this  is  the  grade  of  sentient  organisms.  Highest  of  all  is  the 
human  organization  in  which  is  revealed  a  person  conscious  of  self 


496  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

persisting  in  unity  and  identity  and  endowed  with  reason,  free-will  and 
susceptibility  of  rational  emotions  and  motives. 

These  planes  or  grades  are  distinct ;  superimposed,  as  it  were,  with  an 
interval  between.  And,  if  evolved,  the  revelation  of  the  higher  power 
must  have  been  sudden,  constituting  an  epoch.  However  continuous 
the  process  by  which  matter  was  elaborated  to  a  capacity  of  being  a 
medium  through  which  the  power  could  act,  the  actual  appearance  of 
the  power  must  have  been  sudden.  A  chemist  takes  time  to  prepare 
a  certain  solution ;  but  when  it  is  prepared  he  has  only  to  thrust  a 
substance  into  it  and  the  crystallization  ensues,  revealing  the  causal 
energy  by  whatever  name  it  may  be  called.  Whatever  may  have 
been  the  process  of  elaborating  the  organic  matter  and  however  feeble 
the  first  manifestation  of  sentient  life,  there  must  have  been  a  moment 
when  it  began. 

It  is  important,  also,  to  notice  that  the  higher  power  acts  immedi- 
ately on  that  next  below  it,  and  not  on  the  still  lower  grades.  Animal 
life  can  raise  vegetable  organisms  up  to  its  own  plane,  but  not  in- 
organic matter.  The  living  power  of  vegetables  can  raise  up  to  its 
own  plane  inorganic  chemical  compounds,  but  not  the  elements,  nor 
matter  of  the  primitive  grade.  It  is  the  elemental  or  chemical  force 
alone  that  raises  the  primitive  matter  into  its  many  compounds.  If 
God  made  man  from  the  dust  in  accordance  with  natural  processes* 
the  primitive  matter  must  have  been  mechanically  brought  into  posi- 
tion in  fit  proportions,  elemental  forces  must  have  brought  it  into  the 
fitting  compounds,  plants  must  have  organized  it  into  their  own  living 
organization,  before  it  was  possible  to  transform  it  into  the  muscle, 
nerve,  bone  and  blood  of  men. 

5.  The  force  manifested  in  a  lower  grade  does  not  originate  or  create 
the  force  manifested  in  the  higher,  but  only  elaborates  and  prepares 
the  matter  till  it  is  capable  of  being  a  medium  for  the  manifestation  of 
the  higher. 

This  follows  from  the  essential  nature  of  evolution.  Evolution  as 
a  theory  and  as,  if  real,  it  actually  goes  on,  is  analogous,  not  to  a  de- 
velopment or  disentangling  of  what  already  is  in  the  homogeneous 
matter,  but  to  a  growth  or  progress  perpetually  evolving  something 
more  and  something  higher.  But  the  less  cannot  evolve  itself  into 
the  greater ;  this  evolution  necessarily  implies  a  cause  not  contained 
in  that  which  is  evolved. 

There  is  nothing  in  homogeneous  matter  which  accounts  for  the  be- 
ginning of  motion.  For  so  soon  as  motion  begins  the  homogeneous  is 
already  heterogeneous.  The  same  is  true,  if  for  Spencer's  homogeneous 
we  substitute  Thomson's  idea  of  the  primitive  fluid.  As  Prof.  Max- 
well describes  it,  "  the  primitive  fluid  ....  entirely  eludes  our  per- 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM   EVOLUTION.  497 

ceptions  when  it  is  not  endued  with  the  mode  of  motion  which  converts 
certain  portions  of  it  into  vortex-rings.  ...  The  primitive  fluid  is 
the  only  true  matter,  yet  that  which  we  call  matter  is  not  the  primi- 
tive fluid  itself,  but  a  mode  of  motion  of  that  fluid."  *  Matter,  then, 
lies  entirely  beyond  the  range  of  human  perception  until  it  is  endued 
with  molecular  motion.  It  is  impossible  that  this  homogeneous  primi- 
tive motionless  fluid  should  itself  originate  the  motion.  It  is  equally 
impossible  that  there  should  have  been  an  antecedent  process  in  the 
fluid  preparing  it  to  be  the  receptacle  of  energy  and  momentum ;  for 
a  process  would  destroy  its  homogeneousness.  There  must  have  been, 
therefore,  a  beginning  of  motion  caused  by  some  power  acting  on  the 
primitive  homogeneous  matter  from  beyond  it.  When  Mr.  Spencer 
assumes  "  the  ultimate  truth  that  Matter,  Motion  and  Force,  as  cog- 
nizable by  human  intelligence,  can  neither  come  into  existence  nor 
cease  to  exist,"  he  assumes  as  an  ultimate  truth  a  proposition  con- 
tradicting his  assumption  of  the  existence  of  a  primitive  "  homoge- 
neous." 

In  fact  every  interaction  either  of  masses  or  molecules  is  a  begin- 
ning of  motion  or  at  least  a  change  of  motion,  which  reveals  a  power 
transcending  mechanical  force.  Bodies  are  supposed  never  to  be  in 
absolute  contact ;  all  interaction  therefore  must  imply  action  at  a  dis- 
tance. But  mechanical  forces  and  laws  cannot  explain  how  the 
•approach  of  one  body  can  be  indicated  through  space  to  another  so  as 
to  call  forth  an  amount  of  energy  exactly  proportioned  to  the  mass 
and  distance  of  the  approaching  body.  For  the  supposition  of  force 
inherent  in  bodies  always  and  inexhaustibly  radiating  energy  in  all 
directions  through  space,  is  contrary  to  the  fundamental  law  of  the 
persistence  of  force.  And  the  supposition  of  potential  force  becoming 
kinetic  energy  implies  an  exertion  of  the  force-  and  therefore  a  begin- 
ning of  the  kinetic  action. 

There  must  also  have  been  a  beginning  of  the  elemental  or  chemi- 
cal force.  If  there  are  elements  they  must  be  of  different  kinds.  But 
these  could  not  have  existed  in  the  primitive  homogeneous  matter 
but  must  have  been  evolved  from  it.  Or,  if  they  are  not  elements,  and 
the  chemist  may  some  day  succeed  in  discovering  that  they  are  them- 
selves compounds  and  "  yield  more  than  one  kind  of  matter,"  then 
these  simple  substances  must  have  been  evolved  into  the  elements  as 
known  to  us.  In  either  case  the  elemental  or  chemical  force  mani- 
fested in  the  elements  as  we  know  them,  and  the  wondrous  properties 
and  powers  which  their  various  combinations  reveal,  must  have  had  a 
beginning.  And  this  force  could  not  have  been  originated  by  the 

*  Encyc.  Brit.    9th  Ed.,  Vol.  III.,  p.  45. 

32 


498  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

primitive  homogeneous  matter  itself,  but  must  have  come  upon  it  from 
without,  as  a  hyperinaterial  force,  either  acting  immediately,  or  by 
transformation  of  mechanical  force.  Thus  evolution  necessarily  im- 
plies that  the  atoms  are,  as  Herschel  and  Maxwell  have  said,  "  manu- 
factured articles."  They  exist  only  as  they  are  moved.  They  are 
endued  with  peculiar  elemental  powers  only  as  they  have  been 
evolved. 

There  has  been,  also,  a  beginning  of  life.  In  its  lower  grades  matter 
is  elaborated  and  prepared  to  be  the  receptacle  of  life  and  the  medium 
through  which  it  acts ;  but  it  is  incompetent  to  originate  or  cause  life. 
Spencer  says :  "  It  may  be  argued  that  on  the  hypothesis  of  evolution 
life  necessarily  comes  before  organization.  .  .  .  Vital  activity  must 
have  existed  while  there  was  yet  no  structure.  That  function  takes 
precedence  of  structure  seems  also  implied  in  the  definition  of  life."* 
There  is  in  life  a  certain  directive  power.  There  is  no  visible  distinc- 
tion between  the  germs  of  a  zoophyte,  an  oak,  or  a  man,  yet  each  germ 
develops  always  and  only  its  own  kind.  That  directive  agency,  which 
orders  and  guides  all  the  innumerable  particles  taken  up  into  the 
organization  to  the  position,  character  and  action  which  shall  subserve 
the  growth  of  the  specific  plant  or  animal,  is  in  the  seed  not  in  in  its 
environment.  For  in  every  environment  in  which  the  seed  can  germi- 
nate, it  grows  into  its  own  kind.  Of  the  germs  of  various  species 
Prof.  Newcomb  says :  "  In  everything  which  constitutes  a  material 
quality  they  are  identical.  Yet  they  differ  as  widely  as  a  clam,  an 
oak  tree,  or  a  philosopher.  Since  this  difference  does  not  consist 
in  the  arrangement  of  their  molecules,  we  may  properly  call  it  hyper- 
material" 

The  hypermaterial  origin  of  life  is  the  more  evident  since,  in  the 
whole  material  universe  throughout  all  space  and  time  as  known  to 
us,  the  begining  of  life  in  any  organization  is  conditioned  on  the  pre- 
vious existence  of  living  matter  from  which  it  proceeds.  Life,  then, 
is  the  cause  of  organization,  not  its  product.  Whatever  the  previous 
elaboration  of  matter  needful  in  its  lower  grades,  it  is  the  power  of 
life  which  organizes  matter  and  in  and  through  the  organization 
reveals  itself.  Science  has  never  been  able  to  reduce  it  to  a  lower 
level  or  to  identify  it  with  chemical  or  mechanical  energy.  As  "  aquosity  " 
reveals  the  chemical  or  elemental  energy  which  produces  water,  vitality 
reveals  the  power  of  life  which  produces  organisms. 

As  the  evolution  proceeds  organic  matter  is  elaborated  till  it  becomes 
capable  of  being  a  medium  of  manifesting  sensitivity.  And  again 
matter  is  elaborated  in  higher  and  higher  forms  of  animal  life  till  it 

*  Biology,  §§  61,  55.    Vol.  I.,  pp.  153,  167. 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION   FROM   EVOLUTION.  499 

becomes  a  fit  medium  for  the  manifestation  of  reason,  free-will  and 
rational  motives  and  emotions.  Thus  that  the  power  manifested  in 
the  facts  of  personality  is  an  immaterial  and  spiritual  power  is  entirely 
in  harmony  with  evolution  and  analogous  to  the  revelation  of  new 
powers  in  all  its  stages. 

The  force  of  the  argument  is  enhanced  by  the  fact  that  the  power 
revealed  at  each  grade  is  not  only  new  but  higher.  As  a  greater  power 
having  a  wider  and  more  complicated  reach,  it  cannot  have  been 
caused  by  the  inferior  power.  This  superiority  is  seen  in  the  facts 
that  the  lower  power  is  held  in  abeyance  by  the  higher,  and  that  the 
higher  reacts  with  dominant  energy  on  matter  in  all  its  lower  planes. 
Electricity  and  magnetism  in  lifting  light  bodies  overpower  gravita- 
tion All  mechanical  forces,  molar  or  molecular,  are  held  in  abeyance 
in  the  presence  of  the  elemental  force.  This  is  illustrated  in  Fara- 
day's representation  that  the  chemical  force  in  a  drop  of  water  is 
equivalent  to  the  electric  force  in  an  ordinary  thunder-shower.  The 
elemental  force  is  held  in  abeyance  in  the  presence  of  life.  So  long  as 
life  continues,  the  composite  substances  in  the  tissues  of  the  body, 
notwithstanding  continual  waste  and  supply,  retain  their  organic  in- 
tegrity, and  the  food  is  digested  into  the  living  tissues  in  spite  of  chem- 
ical affinity.  But  the  moment  life  ceases,  the  elemental  force  resumes 
its  sway  and  decomposes  the  body  into  its  inorganic  constituents.  Life 
also  reacts  with  resistless  power  on  inferior  nature.  The  delicate  germ 
of  an  acorn  forces  itself  up  through  the  oppressing  mould,  transforms 
the  earth,  air  and  water  into  its  own  organic  substance,  and  overpower- 
ing the  gravitating  force  of  the  whole  earth,  lifts  the  immense  and 
growing  mass  into  the  air  and  in  defiance  of  all  storms  holds  it  there 
for  centuries.  But  when  death  comes,  the  chemical  and  mechanical 
forces  begin  to  tear  it  down. 

And  this  power  of  life,  whenever  and  however  it  first  appeared, 
though  it  were  only  in  a  single  cell,  immediately  began  to  react  on 
nature  in  its  lifeless  and  inorganic  forms,  and  to  modify,  elevate  and 
adorn  it.  Then,  when  the  organic  matter  is  so  elaborated  as  to  be 
capable  of  higher  manifestation,  sensitivity  appears.  Here  anew  we 
have  a  power  reacting  on  the  plants  and  on  inorganic  matter,  pushing 
and  spreading  itself  everywhere,  till  the  waters,  the  air  and  the  land 
are  filled  with  living  creatures,  visible  or  microscopic,  which  continually 
lift  the  lifeless  matter  into  living  organisms,  and  unfold  living  organism 
to  the  capacity  of  manifesting  higher  and  higher  powers  of  life.  Iir 
the  view  of  the  first  appearance  of  sensitivity  Noire  breaks  into  apos- 
trophe :  "  Thou  almighty,  despotic,  inorganic  world,  avert  in  an  instant 
the  warfare  which  threatens  thee,  crush  out  of  being  this  weak,  power- 
less little  point  of  sensitivity.  It  does  it  not ;  it  cannot  do  it ;  it  is 


500  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

the  unconscious,  stiff,  bound-up  world ;  and  therein  lies  the  great  super- 
iority, the  future  victory  of  this  little  point  of  life  over  the  giant 
forces  of  the  universe."* 

As  the  tissues  of  the  animal  are  elaborated,  they  become  in  the 
human  organization  the  medium  for  manifesting  reason,  free-will  and 
rational  sensibility.  In  the  germination  and  growth  of  plants  and 
animals  life  acting  in  unconsciousness  is  a  directive  energy,  ordering 
and  guiding  all  the  particles,  as  they  are  taken  in,  to  realize  the  plan 
of  a  complicated  organization.  But  when  reason  appears  a  power  is 
revealed  which  in  conscious  intelligence  and  freedom  orders  and  con- 
trols the  energies  and  resources  of  nature  to  express  the  truths  and 
ideals  of  reason  and  to  accomplish  the  chosen  ends  of  free-will.  It  is 
a  power  which  discovers  nature's  secrets,  declares  its  laws  and  uses  its 
resources  and  powers  for  its  own  ends.  As  man  advances  in  civiliza- 
tion, he  civilizes  nature ;  man's  selection  displaces  natural  selection  ; 
man's  thoughts  become  imprinted  on  the  surface  of  the  whole  earth. 
Man  is  a  lord  of  nature ;  as  it  is  written  in  Genesis :  "  God  created 
man  in  his  own  image,  and  gave  him  dominion  over  the  fish  of  the  sea, 
and  over  the  fowl  of  the  air,  and  over  the  cattle,  and  over  all  the 
earth,  and  over  every  creeping  thing  that  creepeth  upon  the  earth." 
Here  again  we  see  that  evolution,  if  true  as  a  law  of  nature,  is  consis- 
tent with  the  fact  that  there  is  a  spirit  in  man. 

6.  Matter  in  the  higher  grades  does  not  create  or  orginate  the 
higher  power,  but  only  reveals  it.  It  reveals  it  as  an  effect  reveals  its 
cause.  It  is  not  the  sphericity  of  a  rain-drop  which  causes  the  attrac- 
tion, but  the  attraction  which  causes  the  sphericity  and  is  revealed  in 
it.  It  is  not  the  crystalline  structure  which  originates  the  symmetrizing 
energy,  but  the  symmetrizing  energy  which  causes  the  crystallization 
and  is  revealed  in  it.  It  is  not  the  "  aquosity "  of  water  which  causes 
the  chemical  affinity ;  but  the  chemical  affinity  combining  the  oxygen 
and  hydrogen  causes  the  "  aquosity/'  and  is  revealed  in  it.  And  it  is 
in  analogy  with  all  these  when  we  say  that  it  is  not  organization  which 
causes  life,  but  life  which  causes  the  organization  and  is  revealed  in  it. 
In  complete  analogy  with  all  these  conclusions  of  science,  when  sensi- 
tivity appears,  we  refer  it  to  some  hypermaterial  power  revealing  itself 
in  the  animal  organization ;  and  when  personality  appears  we  refer  it 
to  a  hypermaterial  power  revealing  itself  in  the  human  body.  And 
this  necessity  is  the  more  apparent  from  the  facts  that  physical  science 
Cannot  identify  either  sensitivity  or  personality  with  chemical  or  me- 
(jhanical  force,  and  that  with  its  most  powerful  instruments  of  obser- 
vation it  cannot  detect  any  difference  between  the  germinal  matter  of 
plants,  the  lower  animals  and  man. 

*  Die  welt  als  Eutwickelung  des  Geistes;  ss.  362,  363. 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  EVOLUTION.  501 

7.  The  evolution  of  the  material  universe  through  these  successive 
grades  is  a  continual  revelation  of  hypermaterial  power ;  of  a  power 
not  resident  in  but  revealed  through  the  matter.  The  evolution  of  the 
visible  universe  is  perpetually  revealing  a  universe  that  is  invisible. 
Lotze  says :  "  The  ancient  atomists  regarded  the  atoms  as  the  ultimate 
elements  of  all  reality,  the  unconditional  and  true  being  (Seiende), 
which,  existing  before  all  things,  was  the  necessary  and  independent 
ground  of  every  possible  creation."  To  the  moderns,  he  says,  they 
have  a  very  different  significance;  and  thus  the  ancient  atomism 
necessarily  involved  materialism  but  the  modern  does  not.*  Accord- 
ingly he  regards  the  world-process  as  the  evolving  of  "  a  creative  spirit- 
ual principle."  Mr.  Spencer  says :  "  By  the  persistence  of  Force  we 
really  mean  persistence  of  some  Power  which  -transcends  our  knowledge 
and  conception.  The  manifestations,  as  occurring  either  in  ourselves  or 
outside  of  us,  do  not  persist ;  but  that  which  persists  is  the  Unknown 
Cause  of  these  manifestations.  In  other  words,  assenting  the  persis- 
tence of  Force,  is  but  another  mode  of  asserting  an  Unconditioned 
Reality,  without  beginning  or  end."f  So  the  Duke  of  Argyll  says  that 
the  cause  of  crystallization  is  not  referrible  to  "  the  old  arrangement 
wrhich  is  broken  up  or  to  the  new  arrangement  which  is  substituted  in  its 
stead.  Both  structures  have  been  built  up  out  of  elementary  materials  by 
some  constructive  agency  which  is  the  master  and  not  the  servant,  the 
cause  and  not  the  consequence  of  the  movements  which  are  effected 
and  of  the  arrangement  which  is  the  result.  And  if  this  is  true  of 
crystalline  forms  in  the  mineral  kingdom,  much  more  is  it  true  of 
organic  forms  in  the  animal  kingdom."!  These  three  writers,  repre- 
senting widely  different  schools  of  thought,  find  themselves  agreeing  in 
the  same  conclusion,  that  the  evolution  of  the  material  universe  reveals 
a  hypermaterial  power.  To  the  same  conclusion  our  own  reasoning 
forces  us.  When  a  globe  reaches  the  condition  in  which  life  is  possible 
life  appears.  When  organized  matter  reaches  the  condition  in  which 
sensitivity  is  possible,  sensitivity  appears.  When  animal  organization 
reaches  a  condition  in  which  personality  is  possible,  personality  appears. 
At  each  grade  of  the  evolution  a  power  of  the  unseen  universe  is 
revealed  in  the  seen,  a  hypermaterial  power  is  revealed  in  the 
material. 

Prof.  Fiske  gives  the  following  definition :  "A  materialist  is  one  who 
regards  the  story  of  the  universe  as  completely  and  satisfactorily  told, 
when  it  is  wholly  told  in  terms  of  matter  and  motion  without  reference 
to  any  ultimate  underlying  existence  of  which  matter  and  motion  are 


Microcosmus.    Vol.  I.,  pp.  34,  35.  f  First  Principles,  p.  255,  §  74. 

The  Unity  of  Nature,  Contemporary  Rev.,  Sept.,  1880. 


502  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

only  the  phenomenal  manifestations."  *  If  we  accept  this  definition, 
the  facts  which  evolution,  if  true,  must  account  for,  are  incompatible 
with  materialism,  and  materialistic  evolution  is  unscientific  and  ir- 
rational. 

8.  In  man  at  last  a  being  appears  in  nature  who  also  rises  above 
nature,  and  in  his  personality  is  autonomic  and  autokinetic,  self-direct- 
ing and  self-exerting,  and  thus  free  from  the  necessary  sequences  of 
nature.     Thus  he  differs  from  all  inferior  beings,  which,  though  above 
all  which  had  preceded  them  in  the  evolution,  yet  are  merely  powers  in 
nature  capable  of  acting  only  as  acted  on  in  its  invariable  and  neces- 
sary sequences. 

In  the  evolution  in  its  lower  stages  we  see  the  revelation  of  a  hyper- 
material  power,  positing  in  nature  a  new  energy  which  never  rises  above 
it.  In  the  evolution  of  the  human  organization  we  see  the  revelation 
of  the  same  hypermaterial  power,  but  now  bringing  into  nature  a  per- 
sonal being,  rational,  free  and  above  nature,  yet  acting  in  and  through 
nature,  capable  of  manifesting  his  own  thoughts  and  realizing  his  own 
ideals  and  ends  in  nature,  and  of  effecting  what  nature  of  itself  could 
never  have  effected ;  above  nature  in  his  personality  and  thus  in  some 
sense  a  being  independent  of  it ;  and  yet  dependent  on  the  hyper- 
material  power  which  by  his  existence  he  reveals ;  and  revealing  that 
power  itself,  not  as  a  power  or  cause  only,  but  as  the  Energizing  Rea- 
son, the  personal  God. 

9.  I  therefore  conclude  that,  if  evolution  be  found  true  even  to  the 
extent  that  the  living  organized  body  of  man  was  originally  evolved 
from  an  inferior  species  of  animals,  the  evolution  would  still  be  com- 
patible with  the  personality  of  man  and  would  constitute  no  valid  ob- 
jection against  it. 

The  human  mind  cannot  escape  the  dualism  expressed  in  the  words 
matter  and  force,  body  and  spirit,  nature  and  the  supernatural,  the 
finite  and  the  infinite,  the  universe  and  God.  All  investigation  brings 
us  to  it  as  a  fundamental  reality.  Every  system  of  thought  which 
excludes  the  one  or  the  other  is  necessarily  one-sided  and  false.  The 
two  cannot  be  identified.  They  can  be  brought  into  a  unity  of  thought 
only  by  their  relation  to  each  other. 

VI.  Scientific  evolution,  if  true,  demands  the  existence  of  the  per- 
sonal God,  the  absolute  Reason  energizing  in  all  that  is;  but  may 
modify  some  common  opinions  respecting  Him  and  His  relation  to  the 
universe. 

Evolution  leaves  unchanged  the  common  teleological  argument  from 
particular  arrangements  and  adaptations.  But  in  its  essence  as  evolu- 

*  Darwinism  and  other  Essays,  p.  50. 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  EVOLUTION.  5Q3 

tion  it  sets  forth  and  emphasizes  the  teleological  character  of  nature 
in  its  entireness  as  being  progressively  evolved  from  lower  to  higher 
in  the  continuous  realization  of  an  ideal  or  plan.  This  argument 
belongs  to  Natural  Theology  and  will  not  be  further  considered  here. 
I  have  already  shown  that  evolution  is  compatible  with  theism.  I 
propose  now  to  show  that  scientific  evolution  demands  the  recognition 
of  God  as  necessary  to  the  ongoing  of  the  evolution. 

1.  Evolution  presupposes  a  higher  power  previously  unknown,  which 
lifts  matter  from  the  lower  to  a  higher  stage,  revealing  itself  therein. 
It  is  of  the  essence  of  evolution  that  the  higher  comes  down  to  the 
lower,  evolves  it  to  a  higher  condition,  and  reveals  itself  in  so  doing. 
And  this  is  evolution  as  explained  by  scientists.  Accordingly  Prof. 
Le  Conte  says :  "  Evidently  in  the  universe  as  a  whole,  evolution  of 
one  part  must  be  at  the  expense  of  some  other  part.  The  evolution 
or  development  of  the  whole  Cosmos,  of  the  whole  universe  of  matter, 
as  a  unit  by  forces  within  itself  according  to  the  doctrine  of  the  con- 
servation of  force,  is  inconceivable.  If  there  be  any  such  evolution  at 
all  comparable  with  any  known  form  of  evolution,  it  can  only  take 
place  by  a  constant  increase  of  the  whole  sum  of  energy,  i.  e.,  by  a 
constant  influx  of  divine  energy ;  for  the^same  quantity  of  matter  in  a 
higher  condition  must  embody  a  greater  amount  of  energy."  *  We  are 
shut  up  to  the  alternative  either  of  admitting  that  all  powers,  alike  of 
mind  and  matter,  existed  potentially  in  the  primitive  homogeneous 
stuff;  and  if  so,  the  stuff  was  not  homogeneous;  or  else  of  admitting 
a  power  above  the  homogeneous  stuff,  causing  the  evolution  and 
revealing  itself  in  higher  and  higher  forms  in  its  successive  stages. 

I  suppose  intelligent  evolutionists  would  shrink  from  positively 
accepting  the  former  position,  at  least  if  they  had  thought  far  enough 
to  see  the  contradictions  and  insuperable  difficulties  involved  in  it. 
But  it  is  remarkable  that  evolutionists  attempt  to  explain  all  the  higher 
powers  manifested  in  the  universe  as  identical  with  the  lowest  and  as 
manifestations  or  transformations  of  it.  All  force,  chemical,  vital, 
rational,  they  attempt  to  explain  as  identical  with  mechanical  force, 
which  is  force  in  its  lowest  form ;  and  that  force  they  still  for  the  most 
part  explain  as  a  property  inherent  in  matter  itself.  They  conceive  of 
the  universe  as  the  lowest  developing  itself  into  all  that  is.  Topsy's 
words,  "  I  'specks  I  growed,"  are  exalted  into  a  cosmogony  and  be- 
come the  first  principle  of  science.  But  development,  thus  understood, 
can  develop  only  that  which  already  is  in  the  thing  developed.  "  If 
man  is  in  this  sense  developed  from  the  brute,  he  is  only  a  brute  de- 

*  Prof.  Balfour  Stewart :  Conservation  of  Energy :  Appendix  by  Prof.  Le  Conte 
pp.  199,  200. 


504  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

veloped.  If  the  universe  is  the  development  of  matter  there  is  nothing 
in  it  above  matter.  The  development  of  the  lower  is  only  the  eleva- 
tion and  expansion  of  the  lower,  not  a  change  of  its  inferior  nature 
nor  an  origination  of  anything  higher  in  kind.  .  It  is  the  lowrest,  with 
its  necessity,  its  unintelligence,  its  soggy  materialism,  pulsating  higher 
and  higher,  circling  wider  and  wider,  till  it  fills  and  characterizes  all. 
It  is  the  Titans  piling  up  the  mountains  to  scale  the  heavens  and  de- 
throne the  gods ;  but  however  high  they  climb  and  wide  they  rule, 
they  are  still  only  Titans,  earth-born  giants."* 

Theism  presents  the  contrary  conception :  "  In  the  beginning  God." 
In  these  first  words  of  Genesis,  at  one  vault  the  thought  reaches  the 
Highest.  The  action  of  the  universe  is  no  longer  the  lower  lifting  and 
expanding  itself  with  all  its  imperfection  and  its  blind  necessity, 
but  always  the  higher  descending  to  the  lower  to  lift  it  up.  Thus  the 
action  of  God  in  Christ,  descending  to  man  and  working  in  human 
conditions  and  limitations  to  lift  man  up,  sets  forth  the  constituent 
principle  of  the  universe.  The  movement  is  not  of  the  lower  widening 
its  sphere  and  increasing  its  power ;  but  always  of  the  higher  going 
down  to  the  lower  to  impart  to  it  new  gifts,  endow  it  with  new  perfec- 
tions, and  thus  to  extend  the  reign  and  diversify  the  manifestations  of 
its  own  superior  and  richer  potencies. 

Evolution  in  its  true  significance  is  accordant  with  this  principle  of 
Christian  theism.  It  requires  the  presupposition  of  a  higher  power 
acting  on  matter  in  its  lower  condition,  evolving  it  to  a  higher,  and 
therein  revealing  itself.  Men  talk  of  effects  produced  by  law,  or  by  the 
order  of  nature,  and  thus  in  a  cloud  of  words  hide  this  essential  necessity 
of  evolution  from  view.  But,  as  Lotze  says :  "As  little  as  we  regard 
the  idea  of  disorder  as  a  factual  and  moving  principle  in  an  unregu- 
lated succession  of  changes,  so  little  can  we  regard  the  idea  of  order  as 
the  efficient  and  sustaining  original  cause  of  an  orderly  series  of 
events."t  It  is  a  higher  efficient  power,  and  not  merely  a  law  or 
order  which  is  presupposed  in  evolution  and  revealed  at  every  stage. 
Within  the  limits  of  empirical  science  the  facts  of  evolution  are  noted 
in  their  relations  of  coexistence  and  succession  as  they  present  them- 
selves to  our  observation.  When  beyond  those  limits  we  seek  for 
the  rationale  or  philosophy  of  the  facts,  as  evolutionists  in  their 
speculations  are  wont  to  do,  we  must  recognize  power  of  a  higher 
order  revealing  itself  at  each  stage  of  the  evolution  and  accounting 
for  it. 

2.  In  this  hypermaterial    power,  as  the   ultimate   and   continuous 


*  The  Kingdom  of  Christ  on  Earth,  by  Prof.  Samuel  Harris,  pp.  130,  131. 
f  Mikrokosmus.    Vol.  I.,  p.  69. 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION   FROM   EVOLUTION.  5Q5 

source  of  the  evolution,  all  the  powers  successively  revealed  in  the 
evolution  must  exist  potentially  without  limit  or  condition. 

This  is  the  Power,  the  existence  of  which  Spencer  postulates  as  "  a 
necessary  datum  of  consciousness ;"  and  of  which  he  says:  "Deeper 
than  demonstration,  deeper  even  than  definite  cognition,  deep  as  the  very 
nature  of  the  mind,  is  the  postulate  at  which  we  have  arrived.  Its 
authority  transcends  all  other  whatever ;  for  not  only  is  it  given  in  the 
constitution  of  our  own  consciousness,  but  it  is  impossible  to  imagine 
a  consciousness  so  constituted  as  not  to  give  it."*  This  Power  is  what 
we  call  the  Absolute.  It  is  of  this  Power  and  of  this  alone  that  the  meta- 
physical axiom  or  principle,  on  which  modern  physical  science  rests,  is 
true ;  the  principle  that  the  sum  of  energy,  potential  and  actual,  is 
always  the  same.  \Ve  know  that  it  cannot  be  true  of  this  finite  uni- 
verse in  which  we  live  and  of  which  we  have  knowledge ;  for  in  this 
universe  matter  is  known  to  be  continually  evolving  into  higher  con- 
ditions and  revealing  higher  energies ;  at  the  same  time  from  this 
universe  as  a  whole,  force  is  continually  in  a  process  of  dissipation  with- 
out known  return.  Physical  science  itself  thus  gives  decisive  evidence 
that  it  is  not  true  of  the  universe  known  to  us  that  the  sum  of  force  in 
it  is  always  the  same. 

It  is  also  evident  that  this  axiom  cannot  be  true  of  any  finite  uni- 
verse. The  materialist  conceives  of  the  universe  as  a  definite  quantity 
of  matter  and  force,  conceivably  susceptible  of  being  measured  and 
expressed  in  a  row  of  figures.  It  is  bounded  in  space.  It  is  a  closed 
sphere  having  within  itself  all  the  forces  by  which  it  is  sustained  in 
being  and  by  which  one  part  acts  on  another.  It  is  a  machine ;  all 
its  action  is  mechanical ;  its  forces  are  so  adjusted  that  every  expendi- 
ture in  one  part  is  exactly  restored  from  another ;  it  repairs  its  own 
waste,  mends  its  own  breakage,  sustains  itself  in  being,  while  supplv- 
ing  the  force  by  wrhich  all  its  parts  act  and  react  on  each  ether ;  and 
it  has  sustained  itself  in  thus  acting  from  all  eternity  and  will  sustain 
itself  without  end.  Such  a  machine  involves  the  absurdity  of  a  per- 
petual motion ;  an  absurdity  the  same  in  principle  whether  the  machine 
be  small  or  large,  simple  or  complicated ;  the  forces  must  sooner  or 
later  come  into  equilibrium  and  all  motion  must  cease.  In  the  case 
of  a  finite  universe  there  is  the  additional  difficulty  that  the  machine 
must  sustain  itself  in  existence. 

If  now  we  suppose  the  universe  to  be  a  continuous  manifestation  of 
absolute  Power,  whether  with  Spencer  we  call  it  the  Unknowable  or 
with  the  Theist  call  it  God,  then  evidently  the  universe  which  is  the 
manifestation  of  the  Absolute  Power  does  not  contain  the  unchange- 

*  First  Principles,  pp.  98,  258;  §§  27,  76. 


506  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

able  sum  total  of  all  power,  for  its  existence  is  relative  to  and  depen- 
dent on  the  Absolute  power ;  the  evolution  of  the  universe  is  simply 
the  manifestation  of  that  power  as  it  progressively  reveals  itself  in 
finite  things. 

But  of  the  Absolute  Being  the  axiom  is  true.  Should  the  universe 
known  to  us  be  exhausted  of  all  its  energy  and  vanish  away,  all  the 
power  which  had  sustained  it  and  acted  in  it  would  still  exist,  either 
active  in  some  other  universe  or  potential  in  the  Absolute  Being.  And 
at  any  given  time  the  power  exerted  in  creating  and  sustaining  all 
finite  worlds  has  caused  no  diminution  or  exhaustion  of  the  infinite 
power. 

3.  The  Absolute  Being  is  a  rational  or  personal  being.  It  is  the  ab- 
solute Reason. 

What  the  Absolute  Being  is  cannot  be  ascertained  a  priori.  We 
know  what  it  is  so  far  as  it  is  revealed  in  the  universe.  It  must  have 
all  the  powers  necessary  to  account  for  the  universe.  These  powers 
must  be  in  it,  eternal,  unlimited  and  unconditioned.  There  is  Reason 
in  the  Universe;  therefore  there  must  be  Reason  in  the  Absolute 
Being  revealed  in  the  universe. 

In  nature  we  find  both  efficient  and  directive  power.  No  one  but 
the  complete  positivist  disputes  the  existence  of  efficient  power.  The 
directive  is  scarcely  less  common  and  obvious.  We  find  it  in  the  in- 
stinct which  guides  myriads  of  animalcules  like  the  coral  zoophytes, 
and  swarms  of  insects,  like  bees  and  ants,  to  work  together  to  build 
a  structure  according  to  a  plan.  We  find  it  in  germs  developing  each 
into  its  own  kind ;  in  the  growth  of  living  organisms  in  which  the 
different  tissues  and  organs  are  elaborated,  each  in  its  own  kind  and 
place,  and  the  action  of  every  part  continuously  directed  to  the  realiza- 
tion of  the  plan  of  the  whole ;  in  the  evolution  of  species,  tending  to 
the  improvement  of  the  species  from  generation  to  generation,  and  to 
the  evolution  of  new  species  of  a  higher  and  higher  order ;  and  in  the 
evolution  of  the  Cosmos  itself,  expressing  truth,  conformed  to  law, 
realizing  systems,  evolving  higher  and  higher  orders  of  beings,  and 
realizing  results  the  apprehension  of  which  constitutes  science  and  reveals 
all  nature  constructed  according  to  the  truths  and  laws  of  reason.*  Thus 
we  have  in  nature  itself  manifestations  not  only  of  efficient  power,  but 
of  that  directive  agency  which  belongs  only  to  Reason. 

We  also  find  Reason  in  the  Universe  in  ourselves  and  our  fellow- 

*  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  in  the  General  Scholium  to  his  Optics,  says:  "  The  instinct  of 
brutes  and  insects  can  be  nothing  less  than  the  wisdom  and  skill  of  a  powerful  ever- 
living  Agent,  who,  being  in  all  places,  is  more  able  by  his  will  to  move  all  bodies  and 
thereby  to  form  and  reform  the  parts  of  the  universe,  than  we  are  by  our  will  to  move 
the  parts  of  our  bodies." 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION   FROM  EVOLUTION.  „  5Q7 

men.  Evolution,  ever  revealing  higher  and  higher  powers,  mechani- 
cal, elemental,  vital  forces,  ultimately  reveals  Reason  in  personal  beings. 
Therefore,  since  the  evolution  is  the  progressive  revelation  of  the 
Absolute,  the  Absolute  is  revealed  as  Reason,  not  less  than  as  the  source 
of  the  efficient  powers  which  cause  motion,  and  chemical  combination, 
and  life. 

Therefore  the  ultimate  source  and  ground  of  all  that  exists  is  the 
Absolute  Reason  or  Spirit,  in  which  all  the  powers  revealed  in  the 
evolution  of  the  Universe  exist  eternal,  unlimited  and  unconditioned, 
and  by  their  continuous  energizing  progressively  express  in  finite 
realities  all  rational  truths,  laws,  ideals  and  good,  and  evolve  the  uni- 
verse in  the  order  and  beauty  of  a  rational  and  moral  system. 

4.  Finite  beings  have  real  existence  distinct  from  the  Absolute, 
and  are  endowed  with  peculiar  properties  and  powers  by  which  they 
act  and  react  on  each  other  according  to  the  constitution  and  law 
of  their  being  and  are  brought  into  unity  in  various  relations. 

Pantheistic  philosophy  loses  the  finite  in  the  infinite.  The  finite  has 
no  real  being ;  all  reality  is  in  the  absolute  or  infinite.  The  finite  re- 
turns to  the  absolute  in  the  absorption  and  extinction  of  itself. 

Agnosticism,  in  like_  manner,  recognizes  reality  only  in  the  thing 
in  itself,  out  of  all  relation  to  our  faculties  and  utterly  unknowable 
by  us. 

Theism  accepts  neither  of  these  philosophies  but  regards  the  finite 
as  having  its  own  distinctive  reality,  always  dependent  on  God.  That 
I  exist  in  my  own  individual  personality,  that  the  outward  world  exists 
distinct  from  me,  are  ultimate  data  of  consciousness  underlying  all 
human  thought  and  all  human  knowledge.  If,  losing  myself  in  Pan- 
theistic or  Agnostic  speculation,  I  deny  the  reality  of  the  finite  and  set 
it  aside  as  an  illusive  appearance,  my  denial  involves  the  impossibility 
of  knowledge.  Even  the  knowledge  of  the  absolute  is  lost,  for  I  have 
knowledge  of  the  absolute  only  as  necessary  to  account  for  the  finite ; 
and  if  the  finite  is  unreal  the  absolute  must  be  unreal  also. 

On  the  other  hand  the  existence  of  absolute  power  is  a  primitive 
datum  of  consciousness  equally  essential  to  all  thought  and  all  know- 
ledge. If  I  say  that  the  universe  itself  is  the  All,  then  I  deny  this 
primitive  datum,  and  the  All  becomes  a  mere  aggregate  of  littlenesses, 
a  mere  sum  of  finites  having  no  eternal  and  unconditioned  cause  or 
ground.  And  on  this  supposition  evolution  loses  its  significance  or 
destroys  itself  in  contradictions. 

The  finite  universe,  physical  and  rational,  has  reality  of  its  own  as 
the  reality  in  which  God  reveals  his  power,  his  wisdom  and  his  love ; 
the  garment  woven  in  the  loom  of  time  by  which  we  see  him.  Aside 
from  its  relation  to  and  dependence  on  God  it  cannot  exist. 


508  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

While  personal  beings  and  impersonal  both  exist  in  dependence  on 
God,  yet  distinct  from  him,  they  are  also  distinguished  by  essential 
differences  from  each  other.  We  do  not  perceive  the  impersonal  in  its 
individuality  but  only  infer  its  individuality  in  thought.  We  know 
the  impersonal  as  real,  yet  only  as  we  grasp  it  in  our  own  intelligence ; 
only  as  acting  necessarily  as  it  is  acted  on  in  the  fixed  course  of  nature ; 
only  as  expressing  the  thought  and  realizing  the  ideal  and  end  of  the 
absolute  reason  energizing  in  and  through  nature.  A  person  on  the 
contrary  has  immediate  knowledge  of  himself  in  his  own  conscious- 
ness, and  of  his  individuality  and  identity ;  from  this  knowledge  the 
idea  of  being  arises.  He  has  received  so  much  of  the  divine  that  he 
stands  out  (exists)  in  his  own  personality,  distinguishing  himself  both 
from  nature  and  from  God ;  he  knows  himself  as  an  energizing  Rea- 
son, capable  of  creating  and  realizing  ideals  of  his  own,  and  of  ex- 
pressing his  own  thoughts  and  realizing  his  own  ends  in  nature  by 
the  efficient  and  self-directing  energy  of  his  own  rational  free-will. 

5.  The  finite  universe  is  created  by  God  in  the  sense  that  it  depends 
on  him  for  its  existence. 

Evolution  presents  no  peculiar  objection  to  creation.  Since  it  con- 
cerns not  the  beginning  or  ultimate  ground,  but  only  the  ongoing  of 
the  finite  universe,  the  doctrine  of  creation  is  as  compatible  with  it  as 
with  any  other  physical  theory. 

We  may  also  affirm  that  evolution  requires  a  doctrine  of  creation. 
The  theory  always  assumes  a  beginning ;  and  a  beginning  is  also  ne- 
cessarily implied  in  the  fact  that  the  evolution  must  come  to  an  end. 
There  must  then  be  a  cause  antecedent  to  this  beginning.  Evolution 
also  always  assumes  a  definite  condition  and  arrangement  at  the  begin- 
ning and  thus  requires  an  antecedent  cause  of  the  arrangement.  But 
matter  cannot  have  been  the  cause  of  this  beginning  and  pre-existent 
arrangement ;  for  the  evolution  itself  includes  the  entire  activity  of 
matter.  If  matter  by  its  own  action  arranged  itself  and  started  the 
evolution,  then  evolution,  even  as  a  theory  merely  of  the  ongoing  of 
nature,  breaks  down ;  since  the  most  important  action  of  matter  was 
antecedent  to  the  evolution  and  originated  it.  Also,  since  matter  is 
unintelligent  and  void  of  freedom,  it  could  not  have  passed  from  pre- 
vious inaction  by  exerting  itself,  calling  its  powers  forth  from  their 
potentiality  to  active  energy,  nor  could  it  have  been  aware  of  any 
reason  for  so  doing.  Only  a  Reason  energizing  in  freedom  could  do 
this.  But  if  Energizing  Reason  is  the  ultimate  ground  of  the  exist- 
ence of  matter  and  all  its  forces,  then  the  beginning  of  the  evolution 
can  be  accounted  for.  Evolution,  therefore,  demands  a  doctrine  of 
creation  in  the  sense  explained. 

And  we  need  not  go  back  to  the  beginning  to  prove  this.     Matter  in 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  EVOLUTION.  509 

every  condition  in  which  it  is  known  by  man  presupposes  its  previous 
existence  in  a  different  condition.  Matter  perceptible  by  us  presup- 
poses atoms  and  molecules  which  transcend  our  perception.  Molecules 
presuppose  elemental  atoms  of  diverse  powers,  combining  in  definite 
mathematical  proportions  and  revealing  elemental  forces;  and  are 
thus  known  to  be  themselves  "  manufactured  articles."  Gross  matter 
compels  the  assumption  of  ethereal,  matter.  The  ether  compels  the 
assumption  of  secondary,  tertiary  and  still  finer  orders  of  atoms,  and 
of  the  atom  itself  as  a  revolving  vortex.  Matter  in  motion  leads  to 
the  supposition  of  motionless  matter  entirely  imperceptible  by  any 
senses  like  those  of  man.  If  we  drop  the  conception  of  gross  matter 
with  its  atoms  and  molecules,  and  substitute  for  it  the  dynamical 
conception,  then  the  matter  becomes  but  a  phenomenon  of  which  the 
force  occupying  the  space  is  the  thing  in  itself,  a  force  distinct  from 
matter  as  we  know  it,  and  antecedent  to  it.  Matter  exists  in  a  contin- 
uous process  of  transition,  or,  as  the  followers  of  Heraclitus  would  say, 
of  flux,  and  thus  exists  not  of  itself  but  of  a  power  acting  on  it  and 
evolving  it.  Therefore  matter  in  whatever  condition  known  or  con- 
ceived by  us  implies  a  pre-existing  cause. 

Here,  again,  the  matter  which  is  evolved  through  these  successive 
conditions  cannot  be  itself  the  ever  pre-existing  and  eternal  cause 
of  the  evolution.  For  matter  in  its  continuous  evolution  is  limited  in 
space,  time  and  quantity,  and  thus  in  its  essence  is  finite ;  and  the 
finite  cannot  evolve  itself  into  the  eternal,  the  infinite,  the  uncondi- 
tioned. If  matter  is  the  eternal  cause  of  the  evolution,  then  at  every 
point  of  time  in  the  evolution  the  matter  evolved  is  self-existent  and 
self-sustaining,  and  contains  potentially  all  the  energies  revealed  in 
the  endless  evolution,  without  limit  or  condition.  This  predicates  of 
matter  all  the  attributes  of  absolute  being ;  it  is  the  old  absurdity 
of  identifying  the  finite  with  the  infinite  and  predicating  of  the  finite 
all  the  attributes  of  the  infinite  and  absolute  tyeing.  The  contradic- 
.tions  already  noted  as  inseparable  from  this  error  necessarily  follow. 
At  whatever  point  in  the  evolution  we  conceive  of  the  finite  universe, 
we  know  by  an  invincible  necessity  of  thought  that  it  rests  on  some 
power  beyond  itself,  which  is  self-existent,  is  unlimited  in  space  and 
time,  and  contains  potentially  all  the  powers  wrhich  the  universe  're- 
veals. Thus  at  every  point  of  its  progress  the  evolution  demands  a 
creator  on  wrhich  the  ever-evolving  matter  depends  for  its  existence 
as  well  as  for  its  evolution. 

This  ultimate  cause  or  ground  of  the  universe  can  only  be  the  abso- 
lute Reason  in  whom  all  power  is  eternal  and  potential.  This  abso- 
lute Reason  is  God,  capable  of  being  at  once  subje'ct  and  object  of  his 
own  action,  eternally  knowing  the  universe  archetypal  within  his  own 


510  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

thought,  and  eternally  existing  independent  and  unconditioned.  If  he 
creates  he  is  able  to  do  so  in  the  free  exertion  of  his  power ;  and  whether 
he  creates  or  refrains  from  creating  there  is  always  reason  for  his  action 
in  his  own  perfect  wisdom  and  love. 

Mr.  James  Sully  maintains  that  evolution  is  incompatible  with  crea- 
tion ;  and  this  is  a  common  opinion  both  of  evolutionists  and  others. 
This  incompatibility  exists  if  creation  is  an  instantaneous  act  in  w^hich 
the  universe  with  all  its  afrangements  is  finished.  This  was  Augus- 
tine's conception.  From  it  comes  Deism ;  for  if  the  universe  was  thus 
finished  at  the  creation,  it  might  be  left  by  God  to  go  of  itself.  But 
according  to  Christian  theism  this  is  not  the  idea  of  creation.  The 
universe  is  not  a  rigid,  finished  machine,  manufacturing  itself  and  its 
own  driving  power  and  running  itself.  Nature  is  not  a  finished  pro- 
duct. It  is  a  continuous  progress,  a  growth  evolving  higher  and  higher 
powers  and  revealing  more  and  more  the  thought,  the  wisdom,  the 
love  and  power  of  the  Creator.  And  in  nature  God  is  ever  active : 
"  He  is  not  far  from  each  one  of  us."  With  this  view  of  God's  action 
in  nature  evolution  is  consistent.  Then  the  essential  significance  of 
the  doctrine  of  creation  is  simply  this :  The  universe  at  every  point  of 
time  is  distinct  from  God  but  dependent  on  him  for  its  existence.  At 
whatever  point  the  universe  is  thought  of,  it  must  be  thought  of  as 
dependent  for  its  being,  as  well  as  for  its  potential  powers  and  its  laws, 
on  the  absolute  Being  distinct  from  itself.  At  every  point  of  time  God 
is  the  prius  of  the  universe,  and  is  its  cause.  The  doctrine  of  creation, 
therefore,  is  compatible  with  evolution,  as  it  is  with  any  other  law  of 
the  ongoing  of  nature. 

How  God  creates  and  sustains  the  universe,  how  the  infinite  reveals 
itself  in  the  finite,  are  unanswerable  questions.  It  is  the  part  of 
wisdom  to  make  no  attempt  to  penetrate  this  impenetrable  mystery. 
It  is  enough  that  at  every  point  of  time  we  have,  "  In  the  beginning 
God." 

6.  God  is  immanently  active  in  the  universe,  sustaining,  evolving 
and  directing  its  energies. 

Some  skeptical  scientists  sneer  at  theism  as  "  the  carpenter  theory 
of  the  universe."  Those  who  teach  that  there  is  no  force  in  nature  but 
the  mechanical,  are  the  ones  who  hold  to  the  carpenter  theory  of  the 
universe ;  for  according  to  them  it  is  a  machine ;  all  chemical,  vital 
and  spiritual  powers  are  merely  mechanical  forces,  and  all  beings, 
animate  and  inanimate,  are  merely  parts  of  the  machine.  Theism, 
recognizing  the  universe  as  the  continuous  manifestation  of  the  supreme 
and  ever-energizing_  Reason,  is  at  the  farthest  remove  from  any  mechan. 
ical  theory.  This  mechanical  conception  of  the  universe  was  charac- 
teristic of  the  English  Deists.  It  must  be  admitted  that  theists  have 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  EVOLUTION.  51 1 

sometimes  conceived  of  the  universe  as  a  machine  and  of  God  as  the 
mechanician,  who  made  it  ages  ago  and  set  it  running.  God's  imma- 
nent action  has  been  ridiculed  as  disclosing  the  imperfection  of  the 
machine ;  as  if  a  clock-maker  were  obliged  to  stand  by  the  clock  always 
and  to  move  its  wheels  and  hands  with  his  own  finger.  According  to 
this  conception  any  direct  action  of  God  in  the  affairs  of  the  universe 
would  be  an  arbitrary  interference  with  it  and  interruption  of  the 
course  and  law  of  nature,  and  contrary  to  the  very  constitution  of  the 
machine. 

Theism,  on  the  contrary,  must  recognize  God  distinct  from  the  uni- 
verse, yet  immanently  active  within  it.  So  Paul  represents  it :  "  He  is 
not  far  from  each  one  of  us ;  for  in  him  we  live  and  move  and  have 
our  being."*  So  Goethe  pictures  it : 

"  What  were  a  God  who  but  with  force  external 
Has  set  the  All  about  his  finger  circling ! 
He  from  within  must  keep  the  world  in  motion, 
Nature  in  him,  himself  in  nature  cherish ; 
So  that  what  in  him  lives,  and  moves,  and  is, 
Doth  ne'er  his  power  nor  e'er  his  spirit  miss."f 

*  Acts  xvii.  27,  28. 

f  "  Was  war'  ein  Gott,  der  nur  von  aussen  stiesse, 

Im  Kreis  das  All  am  Finger  laufen  liesse ! 

Him  ziemt's  die  welt  in  Innern  zu  bewegen, 

Natur  in  Sich,  Sich  in  Natur  zu  hegen ; 

So  dass,  was  in  Ihm  lebt  und  webt  und  ist, 

Nie  seine  Kraft,  nie  seinen  Geist  vermisst." 

(SpriJwhe  in  Reimen  ;  Werke;  Stuttgard  Ed.    Vol.  I.  p.  167.) 

These  lines  must  have  been  suggested  by  those  of  Virgil : 

"  Principio  coelum  ac  terras,  camposque  liquentes, 
Lucentemque  globum  lunse,  Titaniaque  astra 
Spiritus  intus  alit ;  totamque  infusa  per  artus 
Mens  agitat  molem,  et  magno  se  corpore  miscet." 

(jEneid  VI.,  724^727.) 

Similar  are  Pope's  lines  : 

"All  are  but  parts  of  one  stupendous  whole 
Whose  body  nature  is  and  God  the  soul ; 
That  changed  through  all  and  yet  in  all  the  same, 
Great  in  the  earth  as  in  the  ethereal  frame, 
Warms  in  the  sun,  refreshes  in  the  breeze, 
Glows  in  the  stars  and  blossoms  in  the  trees, 
Lives  through  all  life,  extends  through  all  extent, 
Spreads  undivided,  operates  unspent." 

Essay  on  Man,  Ep,  /, 


512  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

In  representing  God  as  immanent  in  nature  there  is  danger  of  iden- 
tifying him  with  nature  or  submerging  him  in  it,  and  so  sinking  into 
Heathenism,  Pantheism  or  Materialism.  Dr.  Caird,  in  his  recent  work 
on  the  Philosophy  of  Religion,  has,  wittingly  or  unwittingly,  taken 
positions  which  logically  involve  Pantheism.  Theism  recognizes  God 
as  always  supernatural,  above  nature,  not  submerged  in  it ;  as  always 
distinct  from  and  above  the  universe  while  immanently  active  in  it. 
We  may  have  an  intelligent  idea  of  this  immanence  at  least  in  the  fol- 
lowing particulars. 

First,  the  universe  is  always  dependent  on  God  for  its  existence. 
Matter  dynamically  considered  is  no  more  than  points  of  force  occupy- 
ing space.  The  existence  of  the  material  universe  depends  on  the  con- 
tinued action  of  these  forces.  Should  it  cease  for  an  instant  the  uni- 
verse would  vanish.  But  force,  independent  of  being,  is  unthinkable. 
Its  existence  necessarily  carries  our  minds  to  a  Being  transcending 
matter,  that  is,  to  God.  God  is  immanent  in  nature  because  it  depends 
on  God  for  its  existence  and  for  all  its  powers.  No  analogy  of  the 
action  of  finite  beings  on  one  another  is  adequate  to  explain  the  action 
of  the  infinite  on  and  through  the  finite.  Sir  Isaac  Newton  compares 
God's  immanence  in  nature  to  the  immanence  of  the  spirit  in  the  body, 
sustaining  and  directing  its  energies ;  Edwards  to  the  action  of  light 
on  a  portrait,  sustaining  it  in  existence.  It  may  be  compared  to  the 
action  of  a  mind  sustaining  a  process  of  thought.  But  however  inad- 
equate our  conceptions  of  the  mode  of  God's  action  on  the  finite,  the 
fact  is  intelligible  that  finite  beings  continuously  depend  on  him  for 
their  existence. 

Secondly,  God  is  immanent  in  nature  by  his  directive  agency.  A 
directive  agency  is  as  evident  in  nature  as  the  efficient  energy.  God  is 
continually  guiding  the  energies  of  nature  as  they  work  on  harmo- 
niously to  realize  a  gradually  evolving  result. 

Thirdly,  God  is  immanent  in  nature  developing  or  evolving  it  into 
new  and  higher  forms.  It  has  been  shown  that  the  process  of  evolu- 
tion is  a  progressive  elaboration  of  matter  to  higher  forms  and  the 
revelation  of  energies  of  higher  orders.  These  energies  are  eternal 
and  unconditioned  in  God.  They  reveal  themselves  in  the  evolution 
of  the  finite  universe.  So  Prof.  Le  Conte  says :  "  The  forces  of  nature 
I  regard  as  an  effluence  from  the  Divine  Person — an  ever-present  and 
all-pervading  divine  energy.  The  laws  of  nature  are  but  the  regular 
modes  of  operation  of  that  energy ;  universal  because  he  is  omni- 
present, invariable  because  he  is  unchanging."*  And  as  God  effuses 
of  his  infinite  energy  into  the  finire,  the  evolution  not  only  goes  on 

*  Man's  Place  in  Nature :  Princeton  Rev.,  Nov.,  1878,  p.  794. 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  EVOLUTION.  513 

continuously  in  time  and  space,  but  reveals  higher  and  higher  powers 
in  higher  and  higher  orders  of  being. 

Thus,  as  we  look  on  nature,  it  seems  like  a  transparency,  on  which  the 
motions  of  an  invisible  actor  are  revealed  in  the  shadows  thrown  on  it 
from  the  light  behind.  So  nature  is  the  veil  before  the  most  holy 
place,  on  which  God,  acting  in  the  ineffable  light  of  the  spiritual  world, 
is  perpetually  revealing  himself  in  action. 

Lastly,  in  the  moral  system  God  reveals  himself  in  human  history 
by  his  action  in  moral  government  and  redemption ;  and  is  present  in 
the  Holy  Spirit,  in  a  manner  analogous  to  the  continuous  effluence  of 
his  energy  into  nature,  and  working  with  influences  adapted  to 
rational  moral  agents  to  lift  them  to  higher  planes  of  being,  to 
bring  them  to  new  and  spiritual  births  into  the  higher  and  divine 
life. 

7.  God's  action  in  creating,  sustaining  and  evolving  the  universe 
is  individuating. 

We  must  not  forget  that  any  analogy  from  the  action  of  finite 
beings  on  each  other  must  be  an  inadequate  representation  of  the 
action  of  the  Absolute  Being  in  creating,  sustaining  and  evolving  the 
finite.  But  by  the  clew  put  into  our  hands  in  the  knowledge  of  the 
finite  we  may  feel  our  way  to  some  real  though  inadequate  knowledge 
on  this  subject. 

The  Absolute,  according  to  the  agnostics,  is  that  which  exists  out  of 
all  relations.  Then  it  must  be  out  of  all  relation  to  the  finite.  Then 
it  cannot  be  the  absolute  Power  in  which  all  the  known  powers  of  the 
universe  originate,  as  Spencer  regards  it.  Then  it  follows  that  we  acre 
as  incapable  of  knowing  that  it  is,  as  of  knowing  what  it  is.  We  are 
driven  to  complete  Positivism.  There  is  no  half-way  house  of  Spen- 
cerian  Agnosticism,  between  complete  Positivism  which  involves  com- 
plete Agnosticism,  and  Theism. 

According  to  theism  the  Absolute  is  not  that  which  exists  out  of  all 
relations  and  therefore  cannot  be  in  any  relation  to  anything ;  but  it  is 
that  which  exists  out  of  all  necessary  relations.  It  is  capable  of  exist- 
ing out  of  relation  to  anything ;  it  contains  all  potencies  in  itself;  if 
other  beings  come  into  existence  it  is  only  as  dependent  on  it.  It  is  in- 
dependent of  them. 

Our  knowledge  of  the  finite  universe  is  the  occasion  on  which  the 
rational  intuition  arises  that  the  absolute  being  exists  as  the  ultimate 
ground  and  cause  of  the  universe.  Thus  in  the  necessary  datum  of  con- 
sciousness by  which  we  know  that  the  absolute  exists,  we  know  that  it  is 
independent  of  the  finite  universe,  and  yet  related  to  it  as  its  ultimate 
ground  and  cause.  We  know,  therefore,  that  it  is  endowed  with  all 
powers  adequate  to  originate  and  account  for  all  the  finite  universe. 
33 


514  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

Carrying  with  us,  therefore,  this  knowledge,  we  can  think  of  the  pos- 
sibility of  the  absolute's  existing  alone  without  the  finite  universe. 
When  we  attempt  to  push  our  thought  beyond  the  universe  by  which 
we  know  the  absolute,  and  to  apprehend  the  Absolute  Being  as  existing 
alone,  we  can  think  of  it  as  the  Absolute  Reason  wrhich  is  God,  at  once  the 
subject  and  the  object  of  his  own  eternal  intelligence  and  power,  of  his  own 
eternal  wisdom  and  love  and  might.  The  eternal  plenitude  of  all  the 
power  manifested  in  the  universe  exists  in  him  potentially.  Those 
powers  which  we  know  revealed  in  the  universe  as  his,  we  carry  back 
beyond  their  manifestation  and  refer  them  to  him  in  his  eternal  and  in- 
dependent being  as  existing  in  him  potentially  without  limit  of  time, 
space,  quantity,  or  condition. 

Then  even  space  and  time  would  have  no  more  than  a  potential  ex- 
istence in  the  absolute  being.  Space  and  time  as  we  now  know  them 
derive  all  their  content  from  our  knowledge  of  finite  beings  existing  and 
acting  in  them.  But  when  passing  in  thought  beyond  the  finite  universe 
to  the  absolute  existing  independent  and  alone,  we  find  no  content  for 
the  idea  of  space  and  time.  Nothing  is  left  of  them  but  the  unlimited 
possibility  of  finite  beings  existing  and  acting  in  time  and  space.  But 
a  possibility,  if  real,  presupposes  a  power ;  and  unlimited  possibility 
supposes  an  unlimited  power;  and  unlimited  power  presupposes  an 
absolute,  unconditioned  being.  Thus  the  ultimate  metaphysical  idea  of 
space  and  time  is  the  idea  of  an  unlimited  possibility  of  the  existence  of 
finite  beings.  And  this  possibility  arises  from  the  unlimited  power  of 
God.  The  existence  of  space  and  time,  therefore,  is  a  possibility  de- 
pendent on  the  power  that  is  eternally  potential  in  God.  If  there  were 
no  God  there  would  be  no  possibility  of  the  existence  of  finite  beings ; 
therefore  there  would  be  no  time  and  space.  These  are  eternal  and 
archetypal  in  the  Absolute  Reason ;  God  is  not  conditioned  by  them  as 
existing  independent  of  himself.  They  are  objectively  real  to  finite 
beings,  conditioning  their  existence. 

The  idea  of  potency  as  distinguished  from  active  power,  in  other  words, 
of  a  power  that  is  potential  as  distinguished  from  actual,  is  derived  from 
our  consciousness  of  our  own  reserved  and  unused  powers.  When 
voluntarily  directing  our  energies  to  a  particular  end  we  are  conscious 
of  power  to  arrest  the  action  and  to  direct  the  energies  otherwise.  This 
power  we  are  conscious  of  having  when  we  do  not  exercise  it.  It  is  in 
us  potentially,  though  not  actually  in  exercise.  This  distinction  is  ap- 
plied in  science  to  physical  forces ;  but  the  application  is  wholly  anthro- 
pomorphic, and  as  so  applied  it  is  often  difficult  to  see  the  significance 
of  it,  and  the  distinction  is  often  misleading.  But  it  has  real  significance 
as  applied  to  the  reserved  force  of  a  free  agent  which  he  can  call  into 
action  at  will.  Since  God  is  a  personal  being  we  predicate  potential 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  EVOLUTION.  515 

energy  of  him  in  its  primitive  and  legitimate  significance.  And  think- 
ing of  him  as  self-existent  and  independent,  we  say,  with  the  full  meaning 
of  the  words,  that  all  powers  manifested  in  the  universe  are  potentially 
in  him  without  limit  or  condition. 

From  this  idea  of  God  existing  eternal  and  everywhere  in  the  pleni- 
tude of  power,  and  in  the  order  of  thought  always  the  antecedent  and 
cause  of  the  universe  which  is  ever  dependent  on  him,  we  proceed  to 
inquire  how  he  reveals  himself  in  finite  things.  I  answer  that  the 
potential  becomes  the  actual.  The  powers  eternally  competent  to 
create,  sustain  and  evolve  the  universe,  act  in  creating,  sustaining  and 
evolving  it.  And  this  action  is  conceivable  by  us  only  as  an  individua- 
tion.  The  powers  which  had  existed  potentially  as  an  eternal,  unbroken, 
unchanging  and  undivided  plenitude,  now  act  in  points  of  time  and 
place,  circumscribe  themselves,  as  it  were,  within  limits,  and  thus  be- 
come individuated.  Thenceforward  as  individuals  having  their  own 
properties  and  powers,  they  have  a  reality  of  their  own  and  act  recipro- 
cally in  time  and  space  on  each  other.  And  as  the  plenitude  of  power 
more  and  more  infuses  itself  into  time  and  space,  the  manifestation  of 
the  divine  power  is  not  only  widened  in  space  and  prolonged  in  time, 
but  the  power  in  its  individuation  is  intensified,  and  beings  of  higher 
and  higher  powers  appear.  Thus  the  universe  which  from  eternity  had 
existed  potentially  in  God,  is  perpetually  becoming  actual  in  space  and 
time  by  the  individuating  action  of  God,  and  is  thus  progressively  re- 
vealing what  God  is.  "  The  heavens  declare  the  glory  of  God  and  the 
firmament  shows  the  work  of  his  hand." 

Creation,  therefore,  is  not  originating  something  out  of  nothing.  On 
the  contrary  in  creating,  the  Absolute  Being  calls  into  action  power 
eternally  potential  in  his  infinite  plenitude :  and  this  power,  energizing 
under  the  limits  of  space  and  time  and  thus  individuating  and  revealing 
itself,  becomes  cognizable  as  a  finite  reality  or  being.  When  the  power 
is  individuated  in  and  occupies  space,  it  is  a  body  and  capable  of  acting 
in  space  and  time  on  other  bodies  as  it  is  acted  on.  When  the  power  is 
individuated  as  rational  free  will  acting  consciously  in  time  and  space 
and  persisting  in  unity  and  identity,  it  is  a  person  energizing  upon 
nature  from  above  it. 

Hence  the  difference  between  the  finite  and  the  infinite  or  absolute  is 
not  the  difference  of  the  phenomenal  and  the  real,  as  the  Pantheists  and 
the  Agnostics  teach.  And  some  theists  run  into  the  same  error  in 
attempting  to  escape  from  the  mechanical  idea  of  the  universe  and  to 
conceive  of  God  as  immanent  in  nature.  Christianity  teaches  that  in 
redeeming  man  from  sin  God  becomes  human  in  Christ ;  he  subjects 
himself  to  human  limitations  and  conditions  to  lift  man  to  the  divine 
likeness  and  to  communion  with  God.  In  this  humiliation  of  the  Son 


516  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

of  God  we  have  set  forth  the  principle  of  the  moral  law  and  the  moral 
system,  the  law  of  love ;  the  strong  must  help  the  weak ;  the  higher 
must  go  down  to  the  lower  to  lift  them  up.  Evolution  discloses  an 
analogous  law  dominant  in  nature,  the  higher  going  down  to  the  lower 
to  lift  it  up. 

This  humiliation  of  the  Son  of  God  and  his  limiting  himself  within 
the  conditions  of  humanity  is  also  the  most  complete  revelation  of  God. 
As  he  veils  and  confines  himself  in  human  nature  we  see  most  clearly 
and  fully  what  he  is  as  God,  and  learn  that  God  is  love.  To  this  also 
his  creative  action  is  analogous.  When  he  would  reveal  himself  in 
creation  it  is  only  by  confining  and  individuating  his  wisdom,  love  and 
power  within  the  limits  of  space  and  time  and  the  finiteness  of  nature 
and  of  man.  Thus  the  humiliation  of  the  Son  of  God,  in  which  God 
becomes  human  to  make  man  divine,  is  not  merely  central  in  the  moral 
system  and  in  redemption,  but  seems  also  to  set  forth  the  dominant 
principle  in  the  constitution  of  the  universe : — The  higher  goes  down  to 
the  lower  to  lift  it  up ;  the  great  energizes  within  the  limits  of  the  little 
to  make  it  great,  and  to  express  and  reveal  its  own  greatness. 

Buddhism  teaches  that  evil  consists  in  individuation ;  the  existence 
of  finite  beings  as  individuated  and  distinguished  from  the  Absolute  is 
essential  evil,  and  redemption  is  possible  only  by  reabsorption  into  the 
Absolute.  This  is  a  pantheistic  and  pessimistic  conception  entirely 
foreign  from  theism.  According  to  theism  the  existence  of  finite  beings 
however  limited  is  a  good,  as  participating  in  and  revealing  the  divine. 
In  its  lowest  forms  it  is  participant  in  the  divine  power  and  reveals  it ; 
in  its  highest  forms  it  is  participant  of  the  divine  reason  and  reveals  it, 
and  is  capable  of  participating  in  the  divine  wisdom  and  love,  and  of 
acting  and  effecting  results  in  accordance  therewith.  And  the  finite 
universe  is  progressively  receptive  and  expressive  of  more  and  more  of 
the  divine  perfections  forever.  Evil  begins  in  the  acts  of  free  agents 
voluntarily  isolating  themselves  from  God  and  the  universal  system,  in 
living  supremely  for  themselves. 

8.  God's  action  in  the  universe  is  a  continuous  realization  and  ex- 
pression in  the  finite  of  a  plan  or  ideal  eternal  and  archetypal  in  the 
absolute  Reason. 

In  the  absolute  being  are  infinite  possibilities.  All  power  is  in  him 
potentially.  These  possibilities  are  not  indeterminate,  as  if  one  thing 
were  as  possible  as  another.  What  is  possible  and  what  impossible  is 
determined  by  Reason.  The  eternal  truths  and  laws  of  Reason  are,  as 
I  have  said,  the  flammantia  mcenia  mundi  which  no  power  can  set  aside 
or  overpass.  That  which  is  absurd  to  Reason  cannot  be  made  real  by 
power.  This  is  no  limitation  of  the  Absolute,  but  only  the  affirmation 
that  the  absolute  is  endowed  with  all  perfection ;  is  Reason  and  not 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  EVOLUTION.  517 

unreason.  The  universe  is  grounded  in  Reason.  Science  is  continually 
demonstrating  that  the  universe  is  the  expression  of  thought,  accordant 
with  law,  and  realizing  a  plan.  But  if  there  is  thought  there  must  be  a 
thinker;  if  the  universe  reveals  a  rationalplan  there  must  be  a  Reason 
which  plans  it. 

The  universe  with  all  its  possibilities  and  its  actualities  exists  eternal 
as  an  Ideal  or  Mundus  InteUigibilis  in  the  divine  Reason.  God  sees  it 
as  the  expression  of  the  eternal  truth  of  Reason,  conformed  to  its  eternal 
law,  realizing  its  ideal  perfection  and  the  good  which  Reason  judges 
worthy.  God's  action  is  the  progressive  realization  of  this  ideal  in  finite 
things.  It  is  action  which,  in  the  finite  universe,  continuously  and  pro- 
gressively expresses  the  truths  of  Reason,  conforms  to  its  eternal  law, 
realizes  its  ideals  of  perfection,  and  so  realizes  what  reason  approves  as 
the  true  and  highest  good.  God's  action  in  the  finite  is  the  continuous 
expression  and  realization  of  the  thoughts  of  wisdom  in  acts  of  love. 

That  which  is  nearest  to  creation  in  human  action  is  the  action  of  the 
rational  mind  creating  ideals  and  expressing  them.  The  poet  creates 
an  Iliad  and  expresses  it  in  rhythmic  words ;  the  artist  creates  an  ideal 
and  expresses  it  on  canvas  or  in  a  statue ;  the  architect  creates  an  ideal 
and  builds  his  thought  up  in  stone ;  the  inventor  creates  an  ideal  and 
expresses  it  in  a  steam-engine  or  a  telephone.  This  action  is  the  expres- 
sion of  truth  in  accordance  with  law  and  thus  realizes  an  ideal  and 
multiplies  good ;  and  so  far  it  is  like  the  divine  action. 

In  this  there  is  more  than  an  analogy.  Reason  is  the  same  in  kind 
in  man  and  in  God.  As^when  we  travel  to  strange  lands,  all  earthly 
scenes  are  changed  but  the  sun  and  stars  are  the  same,  so  through  limit- 
less space  and  time,  the  truths  and  laws  and  ideals  of  reason  so  far  as 
known  are  the  same  to  all  rational  beings.  Otherwise  science  is  delu- 
sive and  knowledge  impossible.  The  universe  is  the  expression  of  the 
thought  and  the  realization  of  the  plan  of  perfect  and  absolute  reason. 
Nature  can  be  apprehended  in  human  thought  because  itself  was  origi- 
nally God's  archetypal  thought  and  in  its  finite  reality  is  the  progressive 
expression  of  the  divine  thought.  The  mode  in  which  a  finite  reason 
acts,  by  observation  and  processes  of  thought  discovering  facts  and 
advancing  its  knowledge,  is  unlike  the  eternal  knowledge  of  the  abso- 
lute Being,  who  sees  the  end  from  the  beginning.  But  the  unchanging 
and  universal  truths  and  laws  which  guide  the  action,  the  unchanging 
ideals  of  beauty  and  the  imperishable  worth  of  the  true  good  are  every- 
where and  always  the  same. 

Thinkers  at  various  times  and  by  various  processes  have  reached  the 
conclusion  that  the  ultimate  reality  of  the  universe  is  thought.  The 
truth  in  this  conclusion  is  that  the  ultimate  reality  is  absolute  Reason, 
and  that  the  universe  is  the  continuously  evolving  expression  of  its 


518  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

eternal  truths  and  laws,  and  realization  of  its  eternal  ideals  and  of 
all  that  reason  sees  to  have  true  worth.  There  is  no  grander  con- 
ception than  the  Biblical  conception  of  the  creation :  "  He  spake  and  it 
was  done ; "  "  God  said,  Let  'light  be  and  light  was."  The  universe  is 
the  word  which  expresses  the  thought  of  God. 

9.  God's  action,  creative,  immanent,  individuating  and  expressing 
the  eternal  ideal  of  Reason  in  finite  things,  is  also  a  progressive  realiza- 
tion of  his  archetypal  thought. 

As  the  expression,  in  the  limitations  of  time,  space  and  quantity, 
of  the  unconditioned  and  unlimited  powers  existing  potentially  in 
him,  it  must  be  progressive.  Power  energizing  and  realizing  results 
within  the  limitations  of  time  and  space,  cannot  fill  all  time  and  space 
in  an  instant.  Also,  the  infinite  can  never  be  fully  expressed  in  the 
finite.  We  think  of  the  ideal  or  plan  of  the  universe  eternal  in  the 
divine  mind,  as  a  unity  or  whole  expressing  all  rational  truth  and 
law  and  realizing  all  rational  perfection  and  good.  But  the  realiza- 
tion of  this  ideal  in  the  finite  forms  of  time  and  space  must  be  for- 
ever progressive.  We  speak  of  the  universe  as  created  by  one  eternal 
act.  But  an  eternal  act  of  creation  can  disclose  itself  in  time  only  as 
the  continuously  progressive  manifestation  of  God's  wisdom  and  power 
in  finite  things  always  dependent  for  their  existence  on  him.  At 
every  point  of  time  and  at  every  limit  of  space  the  manifestation  of 
the  absolute  in  the  universe  is  incomplete  and  the  universe  is  seen  to  be 
not  finished  and  perfected,  but  tending  onward  to  larger  and  higher 
manifestations  of  God. 

The  universe  must  be  progressive,  also,  because  finite  beings  exist 
distinct  from  God,  each  having  its  own  constitution  and  its  own  pecu- 
liar properties  and  powers.  Moreover,  these  beings  are  not  isolated, 
in  each  of  wThich  God  expresses  thought  capriciously;  but  each  is  part 
of  the  rational  system  which  as  subject  to  the  truths  and  laws  of  Rea- 
son has  a  unity,  significance,  law  and  end  of  its  own  to  which  all  the 
parts  are  related.  The  progressive  realization  of  God's  archetypal 
thought  is  not  by  sweeping  away  the  existing  universe  and  beginning 
anew,  but  is  in  and  through  the  finite  universe  which  already  exists  in 
some  stage  of  its  development,  in  which  each  being  has  its  own  consti- 
tution and  its  own  relations  to  the  whole,  and  which  as  a  whole  is  the 
realization  up  to  a  certain  point  of  a  system  destined  to  be  continuously 
realized  in  higher  degrees.  Accordingly  the  results  which  God  effects 
on  a  finite  being  must  be  limited  by  its  capacity.  No  power  can  con- 
vince a  stone  by  argument  or  persuade  it  by  appeals  to  compassion.  A 
free-will  cannot  be  moved  by  a  lever  or  pulley,  and  its  determinations 
cannot  be  efficiently  caused  by  any  physical  force ;  for  if  this  were 
possible  it  would  be  a  machine  and  not  a  free-will.  And  the  reception 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  EVOLUTION.  519 

of  truth  by  the  intellect  is  limited  by  its  capacity ;  a  child  cannot  be 
taught  Newton's  Principia  or  Laplace's  Mecanique  Celeste.  So  God's 
revelation  of  himself  to  man  must  be  limited  by  the  capacity  of  man. 
If  he  would  reveal  himself  more  fully  he  must  educate  and  develop 
man  to  a  capacity  for  receiving  it.  Accordingly  we  find  that  the  reve- 
lation recorded  in  the  Bible  was  made  progressively.  It  is  also  true 
that  the  results  effected  through  the  agency  of  finite  beings  must  be 
limited  by  the  finiteness  of  the  agency.  The  momentum  of  a  body 
moving  at  a  certain  velocity  is  limited  by  its  mass.  It  is  of  the  essence 
of  a  moral  system  that  results  be  effected  through  the  agency  of  finite 
free-agents ;  therefore  the  results  must  be  limited  by  the  powers  of  the 
agent  effecting  them.  They  may  also  be  modified  by  the  action  of 
free-agents  in  wilful  opposition  to  truth  and  right  and  in  disobedience 
to  the  law  of  love.  The  realization,  therefore,  must  be  progressive. 
But  the  progressiveness  and  the  limitation  which  it  involves  are  in 
God  only  as  the  impassable  barriers  of  perfect  reason  are  in  him  and 
his  action  is  regulated  by  perfect  wisdom  and  love ;  beyond  that  the 
progressiveness  is  only  in  the  finite  universe,  in  which  the  thought  of 
his  reason  and  the  perfection  of  his  wisdom  and  love  are  continuously 
being  expressed. 

I  have  said  that  the  universe  is  the  word  which  expresses  God's 
thought.  The  word  written  or  spoken  which  expresses  a  man's  thought 
is  distinct  from  the  man.  It  thenceforth  has  an  existence  of  its  awn 
expressing  to  everyone  who  reads  or  hears  or  remembers  it  the  thought 
of  the  man.  The  word  once  spoken  cannot  be  recalled.  But  the  word 
has  no  power  to  propagate  or  vindicate  itself.  On  the  contrary  the 
finite  realities  in  which  God  expresses  his  thought  have  their  own  pro- 
perties and  powers,  the  very  power  of  the  absolute  circumscribing  and, 
as  it  were,  hypostasizing  itself  in  them.  Could  the  orator  utter  "  words 
that  breathe  and  thoughts  that  burn"  not  in  the  rhetorical  sense  alone, 
words  conscious  of  their  own  meaning  and  glowing  with  energy  to 
realize  it  in  life,  could  the  artist  people  his  canvas  with  living  beings 
and  paint  into  it  motion  and  sound,  and  could  it  be  that  the  mind 
of  the  orator  thus  vitalized  his  words  and  the  mind  of  the  artist  thus 
energized  in  his  picture,  the  resemblance  would  be  more  complete. 
Accordingly  Lotze  says  of  the  divine  thoughts  expressed  in  the  uni- 
verse :  "  The  Ideas  may  well,  in  the  beginning  of  the  universe,  have 
been  the  determining  ground  for  the  first  systemization  (verknupfung) 
of  things ,  in  its  continued  preservation  and  action,  on  the  contrary, 
it  is  the  efficiency  of  the  particular  things  or  parts  which  realizes  the 
contents  of  the  ideas."*  Finite  things,  thus  having  distinct  existence, 

*  Mikrokosmus.    Vol.  I.,  p.  70. 


520  .THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

limit  one  another,  impinging  and  conflicting;  and  thus  the  realiza- 
tion of  the  universal  plan  is  progressive  on  account  of  the  finiteness 
of  the  things  in  which  it  is  to  be  realized.  J.  S.  Mill  and  others  have 
suggested  that  it  is  necessary  to  theism  to  admit  the  eternity  of  matter, 
which  by  its  intractableness  might  account  for  the  fact  that  the  uni- 
verse does  not  at  once  realize  every  ideal  of  perfection.  But  the  fact 
that  the  powers  potential  in  God  become  actual  in  space  and  time  and 
thus  reveal  themselves  in  finite  creations,  is  the  complete  explanation 
of  the  fact  that  God's  revelation  of  himself  in  the  universe  is  progres- 
sive, and  consequently  that  the  universe  at  any  point  of  time  is  ob- 
viously incomplete.  For  that  the  finite  cannot  be  infinite  and  can 
exist  only  under  limitation,  is  an  eternal  truth  of  reason  which  con- 
stitutes a  limitation  of  all  action  and  which  no  power  can  annul  or 
transcend. 

On  the  other  hand,  this  fact  of  progressiveness  opens  to  us  the 
universe  as  always  evolving  to  larger  and  higher  revelations  of  God's 
glory  and  to  a  more  complete  realization  of  all  that  is  true,  and  right, 
and  perfect,  and  good,  as  contemplated  in  the  plan  of  the  eternal 
Keason. 

It  is  continuously  evolving  in  time.  Existing  manifestations  of  the 
divine  wisdom  and  power  are  prolonged  from  age  to  age,  and  new  de- 
velopments thereof  appear  from  cycle  to  cycle. 

It  may  be  continuously  enlarging  outward  into  boundless  space,  and 
that  forever.  This  is  impossible  to  materialism ;  becauses  it  supposes 
the  sum  of  matter  and  its  forces  to  be  a  fixed  quantity  and  therefore 
finite.  Any  increase  of  matter  in  space  would  therefore  be  an  addition 
to  that  definite  amount ;  any  evolution  must  come  to  an  end ;  and  while 
it  goes  on  must  imply  the  evolution  of  new  and  higher  powers  without 
any  cause.  It  is  not  impossible  to  the  theist,  since  material  worlds  are 
manifestations  of  absolute  and  infinite  wisdom  and  power,  which  the 
creation  of  a  new  world  reveals  but  does  not  increase,  and  which,  if 
a  world  is  destroyed,  are  not  diminished  but  only  manifested  in  another 
form,  or  withdrawn  from  finite  observation  into  the  infinite. 

God's  manifestation  of  himself  in  the  universe  is  progressive,  also, 
in  the  evolution  of  higher  and  higher  orders  of  beings  and  powers. 
This  has  been  already  set  forth.  I  add  a  few  words  on  the  spirit  of 
man,  the  highest  terrestrial  product  of  the  creative  energy  hitherto 
known.  All  finite  beings  inferior  to  man  are  completely  included  in 
nature.  Endowed  each  with  its  own  properties  and  powers  they  act 
and  react  on  each  other,  but  always  in  the  fixed  course  of  nature, 
acting  as  they  are  acted  on.  In  the  process  of  evolution  beings  of 
higher  and  higher  orders  appear ;  but  even  the  brutes  with  their  sen- 
sitive life  and  power  of  locomotion  do  not  rise  above  the  course  of 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  EVOLUTIO?^  *.    igjF     vj\K 

nature ;  they  act  only  as  they  are  acted  on,  and  in  their  instincts 
driven  by  a  power  and  directed  by  an  intelligence  not  their  own.  At 
last  organization  attains  an  individuation  and  development  such  that 
it  is  capable  of  being  the  medium  for  the  action  of  finite  spirit ;  God, 
infusing  into  every  finite  thing  whatever  energy  it  is  capable  of  mani- 
festing, breathes  into  this  organism  spiritual  energies  like  his  own ; 
and  man  appears  in  the  image  of  God,  conscious  of  himself  as  a 
person  endowed  with  reason,  free-will  and  susceptibility  to  rational 
motives  and  emotions.  Here  is  a  being  who  as  to  his  body  is  still 
rooted  in  nature,  but  as  to  his  spirit  is  lifted  above  nature.  This  being, 
thus  endowed,  assumes  the  direction  of  his  own  energies;  he  deter- 
mines the  end  to  which  he  will  direct  them,  and  when  and  how  he  will 
exert  them  for  the  chosen  end.  He  reacts  also  upon  nature,  takes  pos- 
session of  its  resources  and  powers  and  directs  them  to  the  accom- 
plishment of  his  own  ends.  But  for  the  very  reason  that  he  is  above 
nature  and  self-directing,  he  is  no  longer  guided  unerringly  through 
instinct  by  nature.  He  investigates,  deliberates  and  determines;  he 
hesitates  and  doubts ;  he  errs  and  sins.  Being,  as  wre  may  suppose, 
spirit  in  its  lowest  type  and  in  its  infantile  condition,  it  is  not  strange 
if  the  separation  from  the  mother-forces  of  nature  by  his  birth  into  the 
personal  life  should  involve  a  temporary  inferiority  to  the  instinctive 
life  and  a  consequent  liability  to  a  missing  of  the  right  way,  a  moral 
straying  from  the  eternal  Spirit  who  is  the  Father  of  his  spirit  as 
Nature  was  its  cherishing  mother.  But  if  he  strays,  it  is  in  his  power, 
through  the  influences  of  the  divine  Spirit  quickening  his  moral  being, 
to  correct  his  errors,  to  retrieve  his  faults,  to  return  by  his  own  free- 
will to  union  with  God  in  faith  and  love,  to  form  a  character  fixed  in 
all  wisdom,  righteousness  and  good-will,  and  thus  in  the  fixedness  and 
the  glory  of  his  perfection,  surpass  the  brightest  and  most  glorious 
of  natural  objects.  "  They  shall  shine  as  the  stars  forever  and  ever." 
"The  righteous  shall  shine  as  the  sun  in  the  kingdom  of  their 
Father."  Their  differences  are  described  as  "  one  glory  of  the  sun,  and 
another  glory  of  the  moon,  and  another  glory  of  the  stars."*  This 
evolution  is  in  complete  contrast  with  that  of  materialistic  monism, 
which  supposes  that  senseless  matter  evolves  till  it  awakes  to  conscious- 
ness in  man.  Theistic  evolution  supposes  God  immanently  active  in 
nature,  individuating  and  incorporating  of  his  energies  in  space  and 
time,  evolving  finite  creations  with  higher  powers,  till  at  last  he  can 
emit  into  a  material  organization  a  spark  of  his  own  spiritual  life,  a 
finite  spirit  endowed  with  reason  and  free-will  like  his  own.  Accord- 
ing to  materialistic  monism,  the  man  as  he  wakes  to  consciousness  is 

»  Dan.  xii.  3 ;  Matt.  xiii.  43 ;  1  Cor.  xv.  41. 


522  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS   OF  THEISM. 

only  a  product  of  nature ;  the  individual  exists  only  as  the  medium 
for  perpetuating  the  race.  "  The  individual  perishes,  the  All  endures ; " 
and  Riickert's  touching  lament  of  the  withering  flower  becomes  the 
universal  dirge : 

"  Ewig  ist  das  Ganze  griin, 
Nur  das  Einzle  welkt  geschwind." 

According  to  theistic  evolution,  on  the  contrary,  beginning  with  the 
highest  and  not  with  the  lowest,  the  spirit  of  man,  being  above  nature, 
is  not  dependent  on  nature  and  its  processes  for  its  existence,  but  has 
in  itself  the  elements  of  immortality.  And  when  the  body  dies  the 
spirit  lives,  forming  for  itself  it  may  be  by  its  own  plastic  power  a 
more  ethereal  medium  through  which  it  may  act. 

The  existence  of  the  spirit  has  sometimes  been  so  taught  and  de- 
fended by  theists  as  to  imply  that  every  living  creature  is  animated  by 
a  soul.  The  doctrine  is  then  open  to  the  objection  that,  since  a  single 
cell  has  life,  every  living  cell  must  have  a  soul.  But  according  to 
theism  rightly  understood,  the  divine  power  raises  matter  to  various 
orders  of  being,  without  lifting  it  out  of  the  fixed  course  of  nature.  It 
is  in  man  alone  of  terrestrial  beings  that  rational,  personal  spirit  appears. 
This  is  the  necessary  result  if  the  evolution  starts  with  the  highest  in 
God.  The  other  conception  of  a  soul  in  every  living  thing  comes  from 
thinking  which  has  not  entirely  cleared  itself  of  the  materialistic  con- 
ception that  the  evolution  begins  with  the  lowest. 

What  the  spirit  of  man  may  become  in  the  course  of  endless  evolution 
the  human  mind  cannot  conceive.  What  new  and  higher  orders  of 
being  may  be  brought  into  existence,  what  new  heavens  and  new  earth 
may  appear,  in  what  new  and  more  ethereal  forms  matter  may  be 
conditioned,  there  is  no  limit  to  our  conjectures.  There  is  nothing 
unreasonable  in  the  fancy  of  Prof.  Le  Conte  that  material  forces  may  be 
gradually  exhausted  and  be  replaced  by  spiritual ;  nor  in  the  fancy  of 
the  authors  of  the  "  Unseen  Universe"  that  the  available  energy  of  the 
visible  universe  will  ultimately  be  appropriated  by  the  invisible,  and 
the  universe  of  gross  matter  will  disappear.  We  have  at  least  certainty 
that  the  manifestation  of  the  Absolute  in  the  finite  is  forever  progressive. 
It  only  remains  to  notice  a  common  error  in  discussing  evolution ;  I 
mean  the  assumption  that  the  evolution  of  our  own  system  is  the  all- 
comprehending  evolution  of  the  universe.  When  it  is  traced  from  its 
beginning  in  the  homogeneous  to  its  end  in  lifeless  and  motionless  equi- 
librium, it  is  treated  as  if  it  were  the  entire  history  of  the  universe.  As 
men  formerly  constructed  theories  of  theology  and  cosmogony  as  if  the 
earth  was  all,  now  with  equal  simplicity  they  construct  theologies  and 
cosmogonies,  as  if  the  evolution  of  our  own  system  was  all.  But  an 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  EVOLUTION.  523 

evolution  like  that  of  our  solar  system  has  gone  on,  we  may  suppose,  in 
the  formation  of  every  star.  Nebulae  are  observed,  supposed  to  be  now 
in  the  process  of  evolution  into  worlds ;  and  the  matter  already  evolved 
into  our  solar  system  or  into  any  other,  may  be  supposed  previously  to 
have  passed  through  many  evolutions.  There  may  be  what  Spencer 
calls  a  "  rhythmic  movement,"  not  only  within  a  single  system  in  evol- 
ving, but  in  the  progress  of  the  universe  as  a  whole  through  myriads  of 
evolutions.  So  that,  as  formerly  in  our  theologies  and  cosmogonies  we 
thought  and  discoursed  of  planets  and  suns,  now  we  must  think  and  dis- 
course of  evolutions,  and  of  systems  in  various  stages  of  their  evolution. 
The  universe  as  known  to  us  is  probably  but  an  infinitesimal  part  of  the 
universe  as  it  is,  and  as  it  has  been.  The  removal  of  this  single  misap- 
prehension silences  the  anti-theistic  arguments  founded  on  evolution. 

10.  The  action  of  God  in  creating,  sustaining,  and  evolving  the  finite 
universe  is  uniform  and  continuous  according  to  law. 

The  common  objections  to  theism  are,  that  the  supposition  of  supreme 
will  introduces  an  element  of  arbitrariness  or  caprice  into  the  universe 
incompatible  with  the  uniformity  of  nature  and  the  universal  reign  of 
law  ;  and  that  the  evolution  of  finite  free  wills  is  an  increase  of  the  force 
in  the  universe,  and  so  incompatible  with  the  order  of  nature.  But  it 
is  now  obvious  that  these  objections  rest  on  a  gross  misunderstanding  of 
theism. 

In  the  first  place,  when  it  is  argued  that  order  and  law  in  nature 
prove  the  absence  of  will  and  thus  disprove  theism,  the  objector  regards 
God  simply  as  an  almighty  will  unregulated  by  law,  that  is,  an  almighty 
caprice  or  oftptq,  which  Sophocles  says  is  the  parent  of  tyranny.  God 
is  not  capricious  will,  but  absolute  Reason;  his  will  is  eternally  in 
harmony  with  Reason,  and  all  his  action  regulated  in  wisdom  and  love. 
Thus  through  all  time  he  is  progressively  realizing  the  archetypal  plan 
of  his  wisdom  and  love  which  is  itself  the  constitution  of  the  universe. 

In  the  second  place,  God  works  on  and  through  the  world  as  already 
existing.  When,  as  in  the  beginning  of  life,  a  new  power  appears,  its 
appearance  is  not  arbitrary  or  irregular,  but  it  appears  then  and  there 
because  the  matter  in  its  evolution  had  reached  a  condition  in  which  it 
was  receptive  of  the  divine  energy  and  capable  of  revealing  the  new 
power.  And  this  new  power  at  its  appearance  becomes  itself  a  part  of 
the  world  through  which  God  acts,  revealing  still  higher  agencies. 
Accordingly  material  things  being  definite  powers  fixed  in  the  limits  of 
time  and  space,  must  always  act  according  to  the  constitution  of  their 
own  being.  Or  if  they  are  regarded  as  vehicles  or  media  for  conveying 
force,  that  also  must  be  accordant  with  their  constitution.  This  is  the 
common  axiom  of  physical  science,  that  everything  must  act  according 
to  the  law  of  its  own  being. 


524  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

In  the  next  place,  the  evolution  of  new  powers,  even  of  free  moral 
agents,  adds  nothing  to  the  sum  total  of  energy ;  just  as  the  appearance 
of  a  new  physical  force  is  supposed  to  add  nothing  to  the  sum  total  of 
force  in  the  material  world.  So  here  the  appearance  of  the  new  power 
only  reveals,  power  always  potential  in  the  Absolute  Being.  Giving 
does  not  impoverish  the  Absolute  One.  The  objection  that  the  exist- 
ence of  finite  free-agents  implies  an  increase  of  force  in  the  universe, 
arises  either  from  the  error  that  the  absolute  is  merely  the  sum  total  of 
finite  things,  or  from  the  materialistic  monism  that  nothing  exists  but 
a  definite  quantity  of  matter  and  force.  Into  some  error  of  this  sort 
Dr.  Caird  falls  when  he  tells  us  that  if  we  think  of  all  power  as  poten- 
tial in  God  and  not  revealed  in  the  universe,  we  must  think  of  God  as 
being  less  than  he  is  now.*  The  same  reasoning  would  prove  that  the 
continuous  evolution  of  the  universe  would  make  God  continuously 
greater  than  he  had  been.  When  man  appeared,  for  example,  God 
would  be  greater  than  before.  The  theistic  conception  of  God  excludes 
this  objection,  as  I  have  already  shown.  It  has  also  been  replied  that 
a  finite  free-will  is  merely  a  directive  power.  It  is  a  principle  of 
mechanics  that  a  force  acting  at  right  angles  to  the  line  of  a  moving 
body  does  no  work,  adds  no  new  energy ;  it  merely  deflects  an  energy 
already  in  action.  So  it  is  said  a  finite  free-will  merely  directs  ener- 
gies already  existing  from  one  line  of  action  to  another.  This  may 
be  so.  But  it  is  unnecessary  to  the  theist's  position  to  maintain  that 
it  is  so. 

The  objection  is  further  urged  that  free-agents  by  their  free  action 
may  interrupt  the  course  of  nature.  Milton  represents  the  good  and 
bad  angels  as  hurling  the  mountains  on  each  other  in  their  warfare ;  and 
why  may  not  mighty  evil  spirits  push  the  earth  from  its  orbit,  or  hurl 
satellites  and  asteroids  against  each  other  as  an  angry  mob  hurl  stones  ? 
I  answer,  first,  that  science  has  made  us  familiar  with  the  idea  of  the 
collision  and  destruction  of  worlds ;  and  it  is  not  theists  but  astrono- 
mers who  at  the  appearance  of  every  comet  revive  the  old  terror  in  a 
new  form  by  predicting  its  collision  with  the  earth.  With  the  views  of 
Prof.  Clifford  as  to  the  inexactness  of  physical  movements  and  the 
common  denial  that  final  causes  and  any  rational  end  or  plan  can  be 
discovered  in  the  universe,  we  seem  to  be  approaching  to  a  scientific 
revival  of  the  idea  that  all  things  happen  by  chance,  which  as  un- 
regulated force  is  in  its  ultimate  significance  not  distinguishable  from 
necessity  or  fate.  Theism,  in  common  with  physical  science,  teaches 
that  as  this  earth  had  a  beginning  in  its  present  form,  so  also  it  will 
come  to  an  end.  It  also  teaches  in  common  with  science  that  this  end 

*  Philosophy  of  Religion,  p.  254. 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  EVOLUTION.  525 

will  come  only  in  accordance  with  natural  law  and  not  by  unregulated 
force  whether  called  fate,  necessity  or  caprice.  According  to  theism 
the  constitution  of  the  universe  rests  on  truths,  laws,  ideals  and  ends 
eternal  in  the  divine  Reason,  and  no  power,  not  even  the  Almighty, 
can  annul  or  change  them,  or  effect  results  in  contradiction  to  them ; 
the  laws  of  nature,  which  to  us  appear  only  as  uniform  sequences,  are 
seen  by  God  to  be  founded  in  these  eternal  and  unchangeable  truths ; 
and  the  archetypal  plan  of  the  universe  eternal  in  the  mind  of  God  is 
the  plan  of  perfect  wisdom  and  love  expressing  the  same.  All  will- 
power is  invincibly  circumscribed  within  these  bulwarks  of  Reason  and 
cannot  destroy  nor  alter  nor  overleap  them.  The  order  and  law  of  the 
universe  are  also  guaranteed  by  God's  love.  While  materialistic  science 
denies  all  final  causes  and  all  plan  for  the  realizing  of  moral  and 
rational  ends  in  nature,  theism  teaches  that  God  subordinates  the 
physical  world  to  the  realization  of  moral  and  spiritual  ends  in  a  plan 
determined  in  absolute  wisdom  and  love.  That  plan  he  guards  with 
all  the  energy  of  almighty  power  and  all  the  interest  of  perfect  love, 
and  suffers  no  finite  agent  to  frustrate  or  mar  it.  If  wicked  beings 
attempt  it,  they  waste  their  strength  in  contending  against  the  very 
constitution  of  the  universe  and  meet  a  power  above  them  which  frus- 
trates their  plans,  restrains  their  power,  and  with  unerring  justice  brings 
on  them  inevitable  retribution.  He  endows  beings  with  reason  and 
free-will  that  they  may  know  him,  may  be  objects  of  his  love,  and  con- 
stitute under  his  government  and  grace  a  moral  system  in  which  may 
be  realized  the  highest  rational  ends  and  the  good  which  reason 
approves  as  worthy  of  God  and  of  all  rational  beings.  He  gives  them 
the  scope  for  action  necessary  that  they  may  have  opportunity  to  choose 
between  right  and  wrong,  good  and  evil,  and  form  by  their  own  free 
action  characters  which  shall  make  them  like  God,  capable  of  entering 
into  his  plans,  working  with  him  in  their  realization,  and  attaining  and 
enjoying  the  good  which  has  worth  that  is  above  all  price  and  endures 
in  the  life  everlasting.  He  comes  to  them  with  all  the  influences  which 
infinite  wisdom  and  love  can  suggest,  in  nature  and  providence,  in  law 
and  gospel,  in  righteous  government  and  redeeming  grace,  to  deter 
them  from  sin  or  to  recall  them  from  it  to  repentance.  If  they 
resist  these  influences  and  persist  in  sin,  if  they  prove  themselves  im- 
pervious to  God's  love  and  incorrigible  under  all  his  saving  agencies, 
then  God  will  not  prevent  the  evil  which  they  bring  on  themselves ; 
for  under  the  constitution  of  the  universe  sin  is  itself  the  essential  evil ; 
a  life  of  selfishness  cannot  bring  blessedness  to  the  sinner,  but  evil  and 
only  evil  continually.  And  in  ways  known  to  himself  God  will  restrain 
their  power  to  do  evil  and  frustrate  their  plans.  Whatever  their  efforts 
the  powers  of  wickedness  can  never  unsettle  the  courses  of  nature  fixed 


526  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

in  his  eternal  reason,  nor  stop  the  efflux  of  his  love  into  the  finite,  nor 
becloud  the  light  of  his  wisdom,  nor  hinder  the  progress  of  the  reign 
of  righteousness  and  good-will  to  which  all  the  system  of  nature  is  sub- 
ordinate. God  meets  their  wrong-doing  with  his  right-doing ;  and  how- 
ever the  action  of  the  wicked  may  modify  the  temporary  course  of 
events  within  their  limited  sphere,  God's  action  on  occasion  of  those 
events  will  reveal  new  aspects  of  his  perfection  and  new  resources  in 
the  riches  of  his  grace  for  the  advancement  of  his  rational  and  spiritual 
plan. 

Thus  we  see  that  all  God's  action  is  continuous  according  to  law. 
There  is  nothing  arbitrary  in  the  divine  will.  It  is  eternally  in  har- 
mony with  the  divine  reason.  Dr.  Caird  says :  "  The  existence  of  a 
finite  world  or  of  finite  spiritual  beings  cannot  be  ascribed  to  a  mere 
arbitrary  creative  will,  but  springs  out  of  something  in  the  very  nature 
of  God ;  the  idea  of  God  contains  in  itself,  as  a  necessary  element  of 
it,  the  existence  of  finite  spirits."*  This  is  certainly  groping  in  dark- 
ness when  there  is  light  enough  to  see.  God  is  not  "nature"  at 
all;  he  is  spirit.  It  only  confuses  us  to  attempt  to  explain  the 
uniformity  of  his  action  as  a  uniformity  of  nature,  as  we  explain 
the  uniform  action  of  a  material  thing.  The  absence  of  arbitrariness 
and  caprice  in  God  and  the  complete  uniformity  of  his  action  arises 
not  from  his  "  nature,"  but  from  the  eternal  harmony  of  his  will 
with  his  reason.  This  is  the  fundamental  basis  of  uniformity  or 
continuity  of  action  in  accordance  with  law.  It  is  the  perfection  of 
God's  character ;  the  perfection  of  his  wisdom  and  love.  The  action 
of  his  will  continuously  expresses  the  eternal  truths,  and  accords  with 
the  eternal  laws  of  Reason,  and  thus  realizes  all  rational  perfection 
and  all  rational  good.  This  is  the  meaning  of  the  words  of  Scripture 
"  God  is  love."  The  accordance  of  his  action  with  reason  is  not  the 
deliberating,  hesitating,  varying  action  of  a  man  not  knowing  always 
what  is  wise  and  right  and  not  doing  it  always  when  he  knows ;  but  it 
is  the  continuous  action  of  an  eternally  charactered  will,  analogous 
at  an  infinite  remove  to  the  uniformity  with  which  an  honest  man 
pays  his  debts,  or  a  saint  in  heaven  does  right.  The  uniformity  of  the 
course  of  nature  is  fixed  in  the  absolute,  never  changing  wisdom  and 
love  of  God. 

11.  The  existence  of  finite  persons  inhabiting  the  physical  cosmos 
under  the  moral  government  of  God,  the  Supreme  Reason,  constitutes 
a  moral  system.  This  opens  a  sphere  of  endless  progress  realizing 
spiritual  perfection  and  the  good  which  is  approved  by  reason  as  worthy 
of  God.  The  materialistic  evolution  of  any  conceivable  system  must 

*  Philosophy  of  Religion,  pp.  251,  252. 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM   EVOLUTION.  527 

have  a  beginning  and  an  end  in  time  and  definite  limits  in  space.  Its 
enenry  is  dissipated  or  equilibrated,  till  the  whole  movement  stops  in 
inaction ;  and  the  mass  remains  lifeless  and  motionless  unless  power 
from  without  itself  is  communicated  and  resolves  it  back  to  its  original 
condition.  Materialism  precludes  such  a  power.  But  even  if  we  sup- 
pose, with  the  materialist,  an  endless  rhythm  of  the  development, 
equilibration  and  disintegration  of  matter,  it  presents  no  object  worthy 
the  eternal  action  of  the  energies  of  God.  It  does  not  reveal  the  wis- 
dom and  love  of  the  All-perfect  and  absolute  One.  But  when  we  con- 
ceive of  each  system  in  every  successive  one  of  its  ages-long  rhythmic 
movements  evolving  innumerable  personal  beings  capable  of  knowing 
God  and  acting  like  him  in  wisdom  and  love  forever,  when  we  con- 
ceive of  these  multitudes  guiding  to  beneficent  results  the  forces  of  the 
worlds  hi  which  they  live,  bringing  the  resources  of  those  worlds  into 
use  and  enriching  and  adorning  them  with  fruitfulness  and  beauty, 
when  we  conceive  of  these  personal  beings  developing  a  higher  organi- 
zation and  passing  into  higher  and  ever  higher  conditions  of  being,  and 
followed  by  trooping  millions  continually  succeeding  and  following 
them  in  their  path  of  development,  when  we  conceive  of  the  physical 
systems  themselves  in  successive  evolutions  brought  to  higher  conditions, 
as  the  Scriptures  shadow  forth  in  the  new  heavens  and  the  earth,  and 
inhabited  by  powerful,  and  wise  and  living  spirits  with  spiritual  bodies, 
when  we  conceive  of  the  spiritual  civilizations,  educations  and  common- 
wealths which  will  exist  in  peace  and  blessedness,  and  when  we  con- 
ceive of  the  innumerable  systems  in  various  stages  of  this  development 
simultaneous  in  space,  and  innumerable  systems  thus  developing  suc- 
cessively through  endless  time,  we  see  an  eternally  progressive  result 
worthy  of  God;  we  get  in  imagination  some  glimpse  of  "  what  is  the 
breadth  and  length  and  height  and  depth  of  the  love  of  God  which 
passeth  knowledge ; "  we  get  some  grasp  of  the  significance  of  the 
words,  "  God  is  Love."  The  material  universe,  with  all  its  grandeurs, 
but  gives  the  ground  on  which  rational  and  moral  systems  are  to  stand, 
the  place  in  which  they  are  to  be  evolved,  the  media  through  which 
moral  and  spiritual  energies  are  to  be  revealed,  and  the  material  and 
instruments  which  moral  beings  are  to  use  for  the  accomplishment  of 
the  highest  moral  and  rational  ends. 

And  it  is  only  thus  that  God  can  truly  reveal  himself  as  Supreme 
Reason  or  Absolute  Spirit.  If  God  were  an  impersonal  being  he  might  ade- 
quately reveal  himself  in  an  impersonal  or  material  universe.  Or  rather 
God  would  not  reveal  himself  at  all,  for  the  impersonal  finite  universe 
would  be  the  all,  with  no  absolute  and  infinite  being  to  be  revealed, 
and  no  finite  mind  to  receive  the  revelation.  Because  God  is  Reason 
or  Spirit,  he  can  reveal  what  he  is  as  spirit  only  in  finite  beings  who 


528  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

are  reason  or  spirit  like  himself.  Man  is  a  personal  being.  In  him- 
self and  in  personal  beings  like  himself  he  knows  what  reason  and 
free-will  and  rational  motives  and  ends  are ;  he  knows  in  a  word  what 
a  person  or  spirit  is.  Thus  God  reveals  to  him  what  he  himself  is  as 
person  or  spirit.  Through  man  and  all  personal  beings,  God  also 
reveals  his  love,  his  righteousness,  his  benevolence,  his  moral  perfec- 
tion ;  for  if  no  personal  beings  existed,  there  would  be  no  beings  who 
could  be  the  objects  of  his  love  or  subjects  of  his  moral  law  and  gov- 
ernment. Man,  as  a  personal  being,  is  the  organ  for  the  deepest  and 
truest  revelations  of  God. 

Man,  as  individuated,  has  being  distinct  from  God.  Like  the  physi- 
cal creation,  man  is  always  dependent  on  God  for  his  existence.  But 
man  is  related  to  God,  also,  by  the  moral  law.  He  is  under  God's 
moral  government.  In  this  relation  he  can  put  himself  in  direct 
antagonism  to  God  by  disobeying  the  moral  law  which  is  the  law  of 
reason.  He  comes  into  oneness  with  God  only  as,  trusting  God,  he 
consents  to  the  law  and  so  participates  in  God's  universal  love.  God 
who  is  immanently  active  in  nature,  is  also  immanently  active  in  the 
moral  system  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  sustaining,  enjoining  and  commend- 
ing the  law  of  love,  and  in  all  action  compatible  with  free  agency  in- 
fluencing all  his  rational  creatures  to  obey  it.  The  deepest  unity  of 
the  universe  is  not  of  substance,  nor  of  efficient  cause,  but  the  unity  of 
a  rational  and  moral  system  in  love. 

12.  Mr.  Spencer  objects  that  conceptions  like  the  foregoing  imply  in 
"  the  Originating  Mind "  a  series  of  states  of  consciousness  and  a  dis- 
tinct volition  to  effect  every  motion  in  nature.  "  Even  to  a  small  set  of 
these  multitudinous  terrestrial  changes,  I  cannot  think  as  antecedent  a 
series  of  states  of  consciousness ;  cannot,  for  instance,  think  of  it  as  caus- 
ing the  hundreds  of  thousands  of  breakers  that  are  at  this  instant 
curling  over  the  shores  of  England."*  Another  asks  whether  a  tiger 
devouring  a  deer  is  a  thought  of  God  devouring  another  thought  of  God. 
It  is  also  asked  whether  God  by  his  direct  volitions  combines  and  moves 
those  physical  agencies  which  rack  the  human  frame  with  torture, 
which  spread  pestilence  and  famine,  or  which  desolate  human  homes  in 
tornadoes,  floods,  earthquakes  and  fire. 

Some  theistic  explanations  of  God's  action  in  nature  give  occasion  for 
these  and  similar  questions  and  objections.  Dr.  Samuel  Clarko  says : 
"All  these  things  which  we  commonly  say  are  the  effects  of  the  natural 
powers  of  matter  and  laws  of  motion,  of  gravitation,  attraction,  or  the 
like,  are  indeed,  if  we  speak  strictly  and  properly,  the  "effect  of  God's 
acting  upon  matter  continually  and  every  moment,  either  immediately 

*  Review  of  Martineau. 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  EVOLUTION.  529 

by  himself  or  mediately  by  some  created  intelligent  being.  Consequently 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  what  we  commonly  call  the  course  of  nature 
or  the  power  of  nature.  The  course  of  nature  is  nothing  else  but  the 
will  of  God  producing  certain  effects  in  a  continued,  regular,  constant 
and  uniform  manner ;  which  course  of  acting,  being  in  every  moment 
perfectly  arbitrary,  is  as  easy  to  be  altered  at  any  time  as  to  be  pre- 
served." Dr.  Caird  and  Mr.  Mulford  have  attempted  to  found  Christian 
Theism  on  the  Hegelian  philosophy.  But  they  have  not  succeeded  in 
eliminating  the  pantheistic  virus,  and  they,  as  well  as  Dr.  Clarke,  leave 
their  statement  of  theism  open  to  objections  like  those  mentioned. 
Christian  theism,  however,  in  shunning  the  mechanical  theory  which, 
with  Robert  Boyle,  likens  the  universe  to  a  clock  wound  up  and  left  to 
itself,  does  not  substitute  for  it  another  clock  whose  machinery  the 
maker  must  continually  move  with  his  finger.  In  getting  rid  of  the 
artificer  it  does  not  bring  in  the  unskilled  laborer  painfully  effecting 
every  movement  by  hand.  Theism  recognizes  the  real  being  and 
efficiency  of  second  causes.  And  because  the  plan  and  purpose  of  God's 
eternal  wisdom  and  love  must  be  realized  in  and  through  finite  beings, 
the  realization  is  progressive  and  at  every  point  of  time  incomplete. 

To  this  Dr.  Cnird  objects -that  the  absolute  being  is  himself  the  creator 
of  the  finite  universe  and  therefore  is  himself  responsible  for  the  untract- 
ableness  of  the  material  on  and  through  which  he  works.*  This  objec- 
tion supposes  mere  Almightiness  to  be  supreme  in  the  universe,  and  that 
in  its  most  terrific  form  of  arbitrary  will  unregulated  by  law ;  that  is  an 
Almighty  Caprice.  Dr.  Clarke  explicitly  avows  this  conception :  "  action 
in  every  moment  perfectly  arbitrary,"  "  as  easy  to  be  altered  at  anytime 
as  to  be  preserved."  This  has  been  a  not  uncommon  misapprehension 
of  God  and  has  given  opportunity  to  objections.  But  this  is  not  theism  ; 
least  of  all  is  it  Christian  Theism.  Christian  Theism  recognizes  Reason 
as  supreme  in  the  universe ;  and  all  its  energizing  is  the  energizing  of 
reason ;  all  its  power  is  in  harmony  with  the  truths  and  laws  and  ideals 
and  ends  of  reason — truths,  laws,  ideals  and  worth  eternal  and  unchange- 
able. This  is  the  exclusion  of  all  caprice,  the  subjection  of  Almighty 
power  itself,  as  Will,  in  its  own  free  and  eternal  choice,  to  Reason  and 
its  truth  and  law.  God's  thought  is  the  archetypal,  unchanging  and 
all-comprehending  thought  of  Absolute  Reason,  and  his  purpose  the  all- 
comprehending  purpose  of  Almighty  will  in  harmony  with  reason  ;  it  is 
the  purpose  of  perfect  wisdom  and  love.  But  the  realization  of  that 
plan  and  purpose  in  finite  creations  is  slow  and  progressive,  and  the 
hindrances  to  its  immediate  and  complete  realization  are  not  of  God's 
own  making.  For,  first,  God's  almightiness  is  hemmed  in  by  the  truths 

*  Philosophy  of  Religion,  p.  144. 

34 


530  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

and  laws,  eternal  in  himself  N  the  Absolute  Reason,  which  no  power 
can  annul  and  so  make  the  absurd  and  the  contradictory  to  be  real. 
Secondly,  his  will  is  eternally  in  harmony  with  reason  and  his  action  is 
limited  within  the  lines  of  absolute  wisdom  and  love.  In  the  third 
place,  the  distinction  between  the  infinite  and  the  finite  is  not  created 
by  any  fiat  of  God's  will  but  is  eternal  in  absolute  reason ;  and  if  God 
is  to  have  creatures  whom  he  can  bless  and  a  wrorld  in  which  they  can 
live  and  be  blessed  by  him,  he  must  create  them  by  his  own  power  as 
finite  creatures,  limited  by  dependence  on  the  power  that  made  them, 
and  limited  in  time,  place  and  quantity.  And,  lastly,  when  they  are 
made,  he  must  respect  their  rights,  and  act  on  them  according  to  what 
they  are,  whether  free  or  not  free,  whether  personal  or  impersonal.  He 
can  cause  in  them  and  through  them,  only  effects  commensurate  with 
their  capacity.  He  emits  of  his  fulness  in  the  inexhaustibleness  of  his 
power,  wisdom  and  love ;  but  the  .creatures  can  receive  of  his  fulness 
only  what  they  have  capacity  for.  If  he  would  make  higher  manifesta- 
tions of  his  plenitude  in  and  through  them,  he  must  first  develop  them 
to  a  greater  receptivity  and  power. 

Thus  all  objections  founded  on  the  limitation  of  good  and  the  liability 
to  evil  which  are  inseparable  from  finiteness  have  no  force.  If  a  star- 
fish were  conscious  of  its  inferiority  and  should  complain  that  it  is  not  a 
squirrel,  the  squirrel  might  complain  that  it  is  not  a  horse,  the  horse 
that  it  is  not  a  man,  the  man  that  he  is  not  an  angel,  the  angel  that  he 
is  not  an  archangel,  the  archangel  that  he  is  not  God.  If  a  man  com- 
plains that  life  is  so  short,  he  might  equally  complain  if  life  were  a 
thousand  years ;  and,  when  knowing  his  immortality,  he  might  equally 
complain  that  he  had  not  been  brought  into  being  millions  of  years  be- 
fore. Equally  groundless  and  for  the  same  reason  are  all  objections 
founded  on  liability  to  suffering,  for  this  also  is  inherent  in  the  finite- 
ness  of  living  creatures.  A  physical  organism  susceptible  of  sensible 
pleasure  must  be  susceptible  of  pain ;  the  demand  for  a  world  exempt 
from  liability  to  pain  would  be  a  demand  for  an  insensate  world.  And 
the  evil  to  which  beings  are  liable  as  well  as  the  good  which  they  may 
enjoy  increases  with  the  increase  of  endowments ;  the  responsibility  and 
the  moral  risks  are  proportioned  to  the  powers.  A  stone  cannot  die,  a 
tree  cannot  suffer,  a  brute  cannot  sin.  All  objections  of  this  sort  in  their 
ultimate  significance  are  demands  that  the  finite  should  be  infinite,  that 
the  creature  should  be  God ;  they  mean  that  it  is  not  right  for  God  to 
create  unless  he  create  God.  We  see,  therefore,  that  God  does  not  cre- 
ate the  necessity  of  the  distinction  between  the  infinite  and  the  finite, 
nor  the  necessity,  if  he  creates,  that  the  universe  as  created  be  finite ; 
and  we  see  that  he  is  not  responsible  for  the  limitations  of  the  finite. 
The  necessity  of  this  distinction  is  eternal  in  the  absolute  reason  and 


MATEKIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM   EVOLUTION.  531 

the  annulling  of  it  is  absurd  and  to  all  power  impossible.  And  even 
with  our  short  sight  we  can  see  reasons  enough  why  God  should  create 
the  universe  with  its  natural  and  moral  systems,  even  though  with  the 
limitation  of  good  and  the  liability  to  suffering  which  are  inseparable 
from  finiteness.  And  this  is  the  lesson  of  the  narrative  of  the  Canaan- 
itish  woman  who  said,  "  Yea,  Lord ;  for  even  the  dogs  eat  of  the  crumbs 
which  fall  from  their  master's  table ;"  we  are  not  to  murmur  against 
God  for  the  limitations  of  constitution  and  condition  which  in  wisdom 
and  love  he  has  appointed ;  but  thankfully  to  accept  the  positive  good 
which  he  gives,  and  diligently  to  use  our  powers  and  opportunities  to 
realize  the  highest  possibilities  and  true  perfection  of  our  being. 

With  all  these  necessary  conceptions  the  scientific  theory  of  evolution 
corresponds.  It  presents  the  progressive  evolution  of  the  universe, 
just  as  true  philosophy  and  Christian  theism  teach  that  it  must  be  in 
order  to  explain  the  slow  but  progressive  growth  of  God's  kingdom  of 
righteousness  and  blessedness  among  men.  The  law  of  the  kingdom, 
as  Christ  declared  it,  is  the  law  of  growth,  "  first  the  blade,  then  the 
ear,  then  the  full  corn  in  the  ear."  The  same  is  the  all-comprehend- 
ing law  of  the  evolution  of  the  universe  under  the  government  of  God. 
Mr.  Spencer's  theory  that  the  mind  is  only  a  series  of  states  of  con- 
sciousness is  not  true  of  the  human  mind ;  much  less  of  the  Absolute 
Keason.  Through  all  successive  thoughts  and  volitions  the  human 
mind  remains  one  and  the  same.  It  may  have  a  comprehensive  plan 
and  purpose  ^which  can  be  realized  only  in  the  successive  acts  of  a  life- 
time. So  God  remains  through  all  the  creations  of  time  the  same 
absolute  Reason.  His  thought  and  purpose  are  one  and  eternal, 
comprehending  all.  It  does  not  follow,  because  finite  things  which  are 
the  expression  or  manifestation  of  his  thought  and  purpose  are  depen- 
dent for  their  existence  on  him,  that  he  himself  is  dependent.  It  does 
not  follow  because  the  manifestation  of  God's  thought  and  the  reali- 
zation of  his  purpose  must  be  in  finite  beings  and  under  the  limita- 
tion of  space,  time  and  quantity,  that  God  himself  is  a  finite  being 
limited  in  time,  space  and  quantity,  and  that  his  thought  and  pur- 
pose are  successive  in  his  own  eternal  being.  There  is  nothing  in 
God's  infinitude  which  prevents  the  manifestation  of  his  thought  and 
purpose  in  finite  beings  under  these  limitations.  If  it  were  so,  that 
very  prevention  would  imply  that  God  is  excluded  from  time  and 
space  and  thus  limited  by  them ;  that  he  is  shut  up  within  his  own 
being,  incapable  of  bringing  into  existence  any  objects  for  his  love, 
or  any  rational  or  moral  system  as  the  sphere  for  his  wise  and  be- 
nevolent action,  or  any  universe  giving  place  and  time  for  rational 
beings  to  live  and  act  and  develop  into  greatness,  excellence  and 
bliss.  Any  rigid  idea  of  God's  infinitude  and  unchangeableness,  which 


532  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

involves  the  impossibility  of  his  acting  in  time  and  space  and  ex- 
pressing and  realizing  his  eternal  thought  and  purpose  in  finite  beings,, 
implies  limitation  of  the  infinite  and  is.  necessarily  self-contradictory 
and  false.  And  since  finite  beings  exist  and  their  existence  is  the 
occasion  of  our  knowledge  of  Absolute  Being,  this  rigid  idea  if  ac- 
cepted necessarily  leads  to  materialistic  or  pantheistic  monism. 

The  thoughts  which  have  been  presented  are  of  value  also  in  answer- 
ing the  general  objection  founded  on  the  existence  of  sin.  This  is 
not  the  place  for  our  theodicy  in  respect  to  that  objection.  But  a 
single  line  of  thought,  germane  to  our  present  discussion,  may  be 
presented. 

Sin  is  the  essential,  and  the  only  essential  evil.  It  is  evil  in  itself 
and  in  all  its  necessary  outcome.  This  evil  is  actually  in  the  universe ; 
it  forces  its  reality  on  our  notice  every  day  and  in  all  the  history  of 
mankind.  It  came  into  the  universe  by  the  action  of  finite  free- 
agents  transgressing  the  law  of  love.  It  is  continued  in  the  world  in 
the  same  manner.  It  is  essential  in  the  idea  of  God's  moral  govern- 
ment over  finite  free-agents  that  they  be  on  probation.  This  is  im- 
plied in  the  very  fact  that  they  are  under  God's  law  of  love ;  that  is, 
they  must  determine  by  their  own  free-will  whether  or  not  they  will 
obey  the  law.  In  this  probation  some  sin.  Their  sin  is  not  of  neces- 
sity but  in  freedom.  They  alone  are  the  responsible  authors  of  sin. 
God  is  not  its  author.  It  is  worthy  of  God  to  give  existence  to  a 
moral  system  in  which  he  is  disciplining  and  educating  his  rational 
creatures  under  the  law  of  love  and  training  their  whole  characters 
into  conformity  with  it,  so  that  they  shall  be  in  his  moral  likeness  and 
shall  be  love  as  God  is  love,  although  under  this  moral  probation  and 
discipline  some  have  sinned.  Every  act  of  God  is  fit  for  the  prevention 
of  sin  and  for  the  reclaiming  to  the  life  of  love  those  who  have  sinned. 
This  is  the  design  of  the  command  and  the  penalty  of  his  law,  of  all 
his  revelation  of  his  perfections  in  nature  and  providence,  and  in  re- 
demption by  the  humiliation,  life,  death  and  heavenly  reign  of  Christ 
and  by  the  presence  of  his  Holy  Spirit  among  men.  In  Christ  is  re- 
vealed to  us  the  heart  of  God  seeking  sinful  men  to  reclaim  them  to 
repentance  and  the  life  of  faith  and  love.  If  it  is  asked  why  he  does 
not  do  more  or  otherwise  than  he  does  to  prevent  sin,  the  answer  is 
that  he  does  all  that  infinite  wisdom  and  love  permit  or  require  to 
prevent  his  creatures  from  sinning  and  to  save  sinners  from  their 
sin.  We  may  also  observe  that  if  a  person  never  sins,  or  if  a  sinner 
repents  and  persists  in  the  life  of  love,  then  the  whole  discipline  and 
education  of  God's  moral  government  develop  and  confirm  him  in  the 
life  of  love.  Then  even  suffering  helps  him  to  realize  his  perfection 
and  his  highest  good,  and  thus  becomes  itself  a  relative  good.  The 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  EVOLUTION.  533 

Bible  intimates  that  some  by  persisting  in  sin  will  miss  all  good  and 
live  always  in  evil.  But  it  is  not  so  much  that  they  are  shut  out 
of  heaven,  as  that  heaven  is  by  their  own  action  shut  out  of  them. 
The  separation  of  the  wicked  from  the  righteous  is  not  first  by  the 
command  of  God,  "  Depart,"  but  is  first  by  their  own  choice  departing 
from  God  and  refusing  and  resisting  all  redeeming  influences  and 
agencies  by  which  he  seeks  to  draw  them  back.  God's  word,  "  Depart," 
is  last  and  not  first ;  it  announces  the  continuance  of  that  departure 
from  him  which  they  themselves  have  chosen  and  have  been  widening 
all  their  lives.  This  universe  is  the  expression  of  God's  thought ;  it 
is  grounded  in  the  law  of  love  and  constituted  according  to  it.  There 
is  no, place  or  time  in  the  universe  in  which  the  person  who  persists  in 
disobedience  to  that  law  can  realize  his  well-being.  All  good  men  are 
laborers  together  with  God  to  prevent  sin  and  to  bring  sinners  back  to 
the  life  of  love.  And  the  power  of  love  must  more  and  more  prevail 
over  selfishness.  Because  sin,  which  is  the  only  essential  evil,  originates 
in  the  finite,  it  is  itself  finite  ;  it  cannot  have  the  prevailing  power  of 
truth,  right,  perfection  and  good,  which  are  of  God.  God's  action  is 
always  resisting  sin  and  evil  by  all  agencies  consistent  with  human 
freedom  and  prompted  by  and  consistent  with  his  own  perfect  wisdom 
and  love ;  but  only  the  action  of  finite  creatures  upholds  sin  and  evil. 
The  latter,  wThich  has  its  origin  and  support  only  in  the  finite,  cannot 
prevail  over  the  former,  which  has  its  origin  and  support  in  God. 
With  this  conception  evolution  is  in  harmony.  The  power  of  God  in- 
fused into  the  universe  is  elevating  it  in  successive  stages  to  higher  and 
higher  forms.  Prof.  Moses  Stuart  used  to  say  he  did  not  believe  the 
time  ever  was  when  God  reigned  over  nothing  on  earth  but  bull-frogs. 
But  the  reign  over  bull-frogs  has  already  been  followed  by  the  reign 
over  men.  And  the  progress  will  go  on.  Always  truth,  right,  per- 
fection, which  are  originated  and  sustained  by  God,  must  more  and 
more  prevail  over  sin  and  evil  originated  and  sustained  by  finite 
beings. 

According  to  the  Christian  conception  that  which  is  most  fundamen- 
tal in  human  history  is  God's  continuous  action  in  it  redeeming  men 
from  sin  and  developing  the  kingdom  of  God  in  the  world.  This  re- 
demptive action  implies  in  its  very  essence  that  the  future  is  always  to 
be  better  than  the  past.  This  promise  and  hope  have  been  in  all  ages 
the  heritage  of  the  righteous.  It  is  set  forth  in  the  opening  of  Genesis 
in  God's  going  after  the  man  and  woman,  who  had  sinned  and  wiio  were 
fleeing  from  him,  and  bringing  them  back  into  communion  with  himself; 
that  is  the  revelation  in  the  beginning  of  God  redeeming  men  from  sin. 
The  same  hope  is  in  the  promise  to  Abraham,  renewed  to  Isaac  and  to 
Jacob,  that  in  his  seed  all  the  nations  of  the  earth  should  be  blessed ; 


534  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

and  the  same  was  set  forth  with  ever  increasing  clearness  by  the  prophets, 
illuminating  with  it  the  whole  history  of  Israel  and  awakening  those 
glowing  expectations  of  a  better  future  which  have  sometimes  been 
called  the  Hebrew  Utopia.     This  promise  and  hope  were  in  the  glad 
tidings  of  great  joy  brought  to  all  people  in  the  humiliation,  the  earthly 
life,  sufferings  and  death  of  Jesus  the  Christ,  and  in  his  ascension  and 
reign  in  heaven,  and  in  the  descent  of  the  Holy  Spirit  to  abide  with  us 
forever.     This  ancient  promise  is  the  heritage  of  all  Christians,  of  which 
Paul  said,  "  we,  brethren,  as  Isaac  was,  are  the  children  of  promise." 
And  now  physical  science,  in  its  theory  of  evolution,  proclaims  that  a 
law  of  progress  is  in  the  constitution  of  the  material  universe ;  that  in 
the  sphere  of  unintelligent  matter  and  force,  in  which  of  necessity  the 
stronger  force  must  always  overpower  the  weaker,  it  is  necessary  that 
there  be  continuous  evolution  from  lower  to  higher  and  that  the  future 
must  always  be  better  than  the  past.     Materialism,  it  is  true,  injects 
itself  into  this  theory,  annuls  the  promise  and  transforms  it  into  a  pro- 
phecy of  despair.     It  forces  the  conclusion  that  the  evolution  in  wyhich 
the  universe  has  hitherto  been  progressive,  with  no  power  beyond  itself 
to  replenish  its  force,  will  presently  be  exhausted  of  its  finite  store  of 
force ;  that  it  will  gradually  retrograde  into  a  lifeless,  silent,  motionless 
mass  and  so  remain  forever.     But  this  annulling  of  the  promise  is  due 
to  the  materialism  alone,  not  to  the  evolution.     Evolution  under  the 
theistic  conception  is  to  be,  with  whatever  rhythmic  movements,  a  per- 
petual progress  to  the  higher  and  the  better ;  nature  itself  is  to  be 
gradually  redeemed  from  its  ills  and  its  imperfections ;  there  will  be 
new  births  of  worlds  and  systems  not  less  than  of  souls.     In  its  evolu- 
tion nature  has  already  become  fitted  for  the  abode  of  personal  beings 
knowing  God  and  serving  him,  has  brought  forth  from  its  bosom  under 
the  power  of  God  a  system  of  rational  and  moral  beings,  whose  center 
is  not  a  sun  but  God,  whose  unity  is  not  by  gravitation  and  the  per- 
sistence of  force,  but  by  love,  and  whose  law  is  not  that  of  mere  force 
that  the  stronger  must  overpower  the  weaker,  but  the  contrary  law  that 
the  stronger  must  help  and  serve  the  weaker,  or  conversely,  that  they 
who  in  love  serve  the  weak  become  great  and  strong :  "  Whosoever  will 
be  great  among  you,  let  him  be  your  minister ;  and  whosoever  will  be 
chief  among  you,  let  him  be  your  servant ;"  which  is  the  two-sided  law 
of  the  moral  system,  Greatness  for  service ;  greatness  by  service.     And 
this  opens  to  us  endless  progress  both  in  the  natural  system  and  in  the 
moral. 

On  the  other  hand  we  must  put  away  an  error  which  often  misleads 
thinkers  on  this  subject — that  at  some  time  not  very  remote  in  the  future 
the  universe  is  to  be  perfected  and  finished,  and  everything  in  it  to  come 
to  its  final  and  unalterable  state.  Whereas  we  know  certainly  that  the 


MATERIALISTIC   OBJECTION  FROM  EVOLUTION.  535 

universe  can  never  be  completed  and  finished,  because  the  infinite  can 
never  be  fully  and  exhaustively  revealed  in  the  finite.  It  must  be  an 
everlasting  becoming.  Therefore  while  we  may  expect  that  the  higher 
conditions  attained  by  progress  will  never  be  lost,  that  the  universe  both 
nature  and  spirit  will  be  ever  progressive,  and  that  the  principles  of 
wisdom  and  love  on  which  God  has  acted  in  the  past  are  those  on  which 
he  will  always  act ;  yet  because  the  universe  is  progressive  it  will  always 
be  imperfect  and  incomplete ;  and  doubtless  worlds  and  systems  in 
various  stages  of  progress  will  always  be  in  it.  And  in  ministering  to 
these  in  their  spiritual  education  and  development,  the  spirits  of  just 
men  made  perfect  may  be  forever  workers  together  with  God ;  as  we 
are  told  that  the  angels  now  are  ministering  spirits  and  rejoice  over  a 
sinner  who  repents. 

In  this  progress  it  is  impossible  for  philosophy  to  foresee  in  what  pre- 
cise way  sin  and  sinners  will  be  disposed  of.  It  is  the  thought  of  some 
that  in  the  lapse  of  ages  and  by  agencies  and  influences  to  us  unknown, 
all  men  will  eventually  be  reclaimed  to  the  life  of  love.  Their  thought  is : 

"  O,  yet  we  trust  that  somehow  good 
Will  be  the  final  goal  of  ill, 
To  pangs  of  nature,  sins  of  will, 
Defects  of  doubt,  and  taints  of  blood. 

"  Behold  we  know  not  any  thing. 

We  can  but  hope  that  good  shall  fall 
At  last,  far  off,  at  last  to  all, 
And  every  winter  change  to  spring." 

In  the  larger  view  of  the  universe  which  science  opens,  the  same  line 
of  thought  would  lead  to  the  expectation  that  all  races  of  rational 
beings,  that  may  come  into  existence  in  other  worlds,  will  pass  through 
their  moral  education  and  development  and  eventually  attain  to  the  life 
of  love  and  blessedness.  This  supposition  is  most  accordant  with  our 
natural  compassion  and  the  good-will  which  is  an  essential  element  of 
all  love,  and  with  the  idea  of  moral  progress  analogous  to  the  evolution 
of  nature.  On  the  other  hand,  when  we  consider  the  immutable  law  of 
truth  and  righteousness  eternal  in  God,  the  freedom  of  the  will,  and  the 
absurdity  and  impossibility  of  any  power,  other  than  the  will  itself,  de- 
termining a  man's  ends  and  forming  his  character,  and  the  persistence  of 
character  as  it  becomes  confirmed  by  action,  we  see  philosophical  reasons 
for  expecting  that  some  will  persist  in  sin  forever.  When  this  line  of 
thought  is  presented,  as  it  often  is,  as  implying  that  sin  is  a  process  neces- 
sary in  the  moral  development  of  every  rational  creature,  it  involves  the 
denial  of  free  moral  agency.  For  if  a  course  of  sinning  is  necessary  to 


536  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

man's  moral  development  and  strength,  then  it  is  no  longer  evil  but  the 
necessary  means  of  good ;  it  is  no  longer  a  free  action  but  a  process  of 
nature,  like  the  necessity  of  a  child's  having  the  measles  in  order  to  rid 
itself  of  liability  to  the  disease.  Then  the  freedom  of  the  man  and  his 
capacity  for  moral  character  disappear ;  and  in  what  we  call  sin  the  man 
is  no  longer  a  sinner  and  no  longer  guilty  of  having  caused  that  which 
is  the  essential  and  the  only  essential  evil  in  the  universe  under  the 
righteous  and  beneficent  government  of  God. 

It  is  the  thought  of  others  that  the  triumph  of  righteousness  will  be 
secured  by  the  annihilation  of  the  incorrigibly  wicked.  Evolution 
would  teach,  under  the  law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  that  incorrigi- 
ble sinners  will  be  crowded  out  of  being.  But  this  law  of  physical 
force  has  no  relevancy  to  the  rational  system,  the  progress  in  which  goes 
on  by  moral  influences  and  agencies  under  the  law  of  love.  In  the 
evolution  of  nature  the  weak  are  crowded  out  of  existence  by  the 
strong.  It  is  more  consonant  with  the  moral  system,  in  wThich  the  strong 
help  and  serve  the  weak,  that  they  who  persist  in  the  isolation  of  selfish- 
ness against  all  these  influences  and  agencies  of  love,  bring  on  them- 
selves, not  the  extinction  of  being,  but  a  moral  perversion  and  corrup- 
tion and  a  moral  impotence  for  good  which,  as  the  extinction  of  all 
that  is  noblest  and  best  in  character,  may  fitly  be  called  a  spiritual 
death  or  death  in  sin. 

The  Christian  Scriptures  teach  in  the  strongest  terms  the  ultimate 
triumph  of  the  kingdom  of  God :  "  Wherefore  God  highly  exalted  him 
and  gave  unto  him  the  name  which  is  above  every  name ;  that  in  the 
name  of  Jesus  every  knee  should  bow,  of  things  in  heaven  and  things 
on  earth,  and  things  under  the  earth,  and  that  every  tongue  should 
confess  that  Jesus  Christ  is  Lord,  to  the  glory  of  God  the  Father." 
With  equal  distinctness  they  seem  to  teach  that  the  triumph  is  to  be 
accompanied  by  a  separation  of  the  wicked  from  the  righteous,  and  a 
restraint  of  their  power  to  harm ;  while  they  will  have  as  their  heritage 
the  evil  which  they  have  chosen  as  their  good  ;  "  they  shall  eat  of  the 
fruit  of  their  own  way  and  be  filled  with  their  own  devices." 

In  what  precise  way  the  prevalence  of  right  over  wrong,  of  love  over 
selfishness  is  ultimately  to  be  effected  we  cannot  determine  from  the 
analogy  of  nature  or  the  speculations  of  philosophy.  The  Christian 
will  submit  the  decision  to  the  teachings  of  Christ  and  his  apostles ;  will 
trust  and  obey  him  in  the  assurance  that  all  who  do  thus  shall  go  from 
strength  to  strength  and  shall  be  more  than  conquerors  over  all  opposing 
evil ;  and  will  wait  for  the  day  when  the  hidden  things  will  be  revealed. 
Then,  whatever  be  his  method  of  insuring  the  triumph  of  truth  and 
right  and  love,  all  will  see  God  justified  as  having  done  all  things  in 
his  dealings  with  men  in  perfect  wisdom  and  love. 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  MENTAL  POWER  OF  BRUTES.  537 


?  81.    Fourth  Materialistic  Objection  to  Personality :  from 
the  Attributes  of  Brutes. 

A  fourth  objection  to  the  personality  of  man  is  the  assertion  that 
man  has  no  attribute  differing  in  kind  from  those  of  the  brutes ;  that 
the  difference  is  only  in  degree.  From  this  the  objector  infers  that 
man  has  no  more  claim  than  the  brutes  to  be  distinguished  from  nature 
as  a  person,  a  supernatural  being  or  a  spirit.  On  the  one  hand  it  is 
inferred  that,  if  brutes  are  impersonal  beings,  man,  having  no  attri- 
butes differing  in  kind  from  those  of  the  brutes,  must  like  them  be 
impersonal.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  inferred  that  if  men  are  persons 
or  spirits,  the  brutes  must  be  so  likewise. 

This  objection  I  proceed  to  answer.  It  is  incumbent,  however,  on 
both  the  objector  and  the  respondent  to  remember  that,  because  we  can- 
not enter  into  the  consciousness  of  brutes,  there  must  be  some  uncer- 
tainty in  our  interpretation  of  their  mental  action,  and  some  diffidence 
and  caution  are  needful  in  our  affirmations  as  to  its  nature  and  signifi- 
cance. 

I.  So  far  as  we  can  judge,  all   the  mental  qualities   and   powers 
manifested  in  brutes  are  also  manifested  in  man,  and  in  both  are  the 
same   in   kind.     This  is  admitted  in  the  outset.     It   excludes    much 
false  reasoning  founded  on  the  assumption  that  if  brutes  have  any 
mental  qualities  in  common  with  man  they  are  proved  to  be  personal 
beings  like  man. 

II.  In  addition  to  these  man  has  the  qualities  and  powers  distinctive 
of  personality,  which  brutes  have  not. 

1.  These  distinctive  qualities  of  man  are  clearly  and  decisively  marked 
in  each  department  of  mind :  in  the  intellect,  the  sensibilities  and  the  will. 

In  the  sphere  of  intelligence  brutes  have  capacities  in  common  with 
mam,  such  as  sense,  memory  and  probably  thought  in  some  of  its  sim- 
pler forms.  In  addition  to  these  man  is  endowed  with  intuitive  reason : 
he  knows  self-evident  and  universal  principles ;  attains  the  rational 
ideas  of  the  True,  the  Right,  the  Perfect,  the  Good  rationally  estimated 
as  having  worth,  and  the  Absolute ;  and  is  capable  of  empirical,  philo- 
sophical and  theological  science.  Even  in  the  sphere  of  perceptive 
intuition  man  has  power  which  the  brute  has  not.  In  all  his  mental 
activity  man  is  conscious  of  himself  as  persisting  in  unity  and  identity, 
one  and  the  same  subject  of  all  mental  acts.  In  sense-perception  man's 
mind  reacts  on  the  objects  of  sensation  as  an  active  percipient,  while 
sense  in  the  brute,  as  we  suppose,  is  merely  receptive  of  impressions. 
Man's  knowledge  is  ontological  in  its  beginning.  Man,  also,  has  a 
power  of  generalization  and  reflective  thought  which  exists  in  brutes 
only  in  its  simplest  forms,  if  at  all. 


538  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

In  the  sphere  of  the  sensibilities  brutes  are  susceptible  of  motives 
and  emotions  the  same  as  are  found  in  man,  such  as  the  appetites,  the 
desire  of  society,  emulation,  compassion,  parental  affection,  and  other 
natural  affections  and  desires.  In  addition  to  these  man  is  susceptible 
of  rational  motives  and  emotions,  scientific,  moral,  aesthetic,  religious, 
and  of  all  motives  and  emotions  arising  from  the  idea  of  worth  as 
estimated  by  reason. 

In  the  spheres  of  will,  brutes,  like  men,  have  the  power  of  locomo- 
tion and  power  to  follow  their  instincts  and  desires,  to  "  do  as  they 
please."  But  their  action  simply  follows  the  impulse  which  at  the 
time  is  the  strongest.  Man  has  also  free-will,  the  power  of  determining 
in  the  light  of  reason  the  ends  to  which  he  will  direct  his  energy  and 
of  exerting  his  energy  or  calling  it  into  action  at  will. 

That  man  is  thus  endowed  has  been  proved  at  length  in  preced- 
ing chapters. 

2.   Brutes  lack  these  distinctive  qualities  and  powers  of  personality. 

I  cannot  go  into  a  full  investigation  of  this  question.  I  only  indicate 
some  points  which,  so  far  as  I  have  studied  the  subject,  seem  to  be  true 
and  decisive. 

First,  many  facts  alleged  to  prove  that  the  mental  powers  of  brutes 
are  the  same  with  those  of  men,  pertain  to  those  lower  powers  which 
are  admitted  to  be  common  to  brutes  with  man.  In  the  discussion 
of  the  subject  the  real  line  of  dernarkation  between  the  personal 
and  the  impersonal  is  often  overlooked.  We  are  concerned  only  with 
facts  purporting  to  reveal  in  brutes  the  attributes  distinctive  of  per- 
sonality. 

Secondly,  the  facts  adduced  to  prove  that  the  distinctive  qualities 
and  powers  of  personality  exist  in  brutes,  fail  to  prove  it.  To  justify 
this  conclusion  would  require  a  critical  examination  of  a  multitude  of 
alleged  facts,  impossible  within  the  limits  of  this  discussion.  I  merely 
mention  a  few  to  exemplify  my  meaning,  all  taken  from  published 
papers  professing  to  be  scientific.  A  dog  which  accompanied  its  master 
several  days  in  succession  across  a  pasture  always  broke  away  and  ran 
wildly  around  a  large  stump  near  the  path ;  and  this  is  cited  as  an 
example  of  fetich  worship  in  the  dog.  Darwin  mentions  a  dog  whose 
behaviour  in  presence  of  a  newspaper  moved  by  the  wind  seemed  to 
indicate  a  "  sense  of  the  supernatural."  A  little  dog  accustomed  to 
play  with  a  rubber  ball,  being  left  alone,  was  found,  when  some  one 
entered,  erect  on  a  table  holding  out  its  forepaws  to  the  ball  lying  on 
the  mantel  beyond  the  dog's  reach.  It  was  claimed  that  the  dog  was 
praying  to  the  ball  to  come  down.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  relig- 
iousness indicated  in  facts  like  these  exists  only  in  the  fancy  of  the 
observer.  Many  facts  urged  as  decisive  evidence  of  morality  or  even  of 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FEOM  MENTAL  POWER  OF  BRUTES.  539 

religion  in  brutes  indicate  merely  natural  or  instinctive  affections.  The 
sympathy  and  compassion  of  brutes  is  claimed  as  "  the  divinest  thing  in 
man."  But  sympathy  and  pity  are  affections  of  nature  arising  involun- 
tarily in  the  presence  of  suffering  and  do  not  constitute  moral  character 
in  its  primary  and  distinctive  meaning.  It  is  claimed  that  a  dog  lying 
persistently  on  its  master's  grave  till  it  dies  reveals  self-sacrificing  love, 
which  is  the  highest  virtue.  On  the  contrary,  it  reveals  simply  an  un- 
controlled and  irrational  natural  affection,  not  a  rational  love  enduring 
suffering  for  the  good  of  another  or  in  the  intelligent  doing  of  duty. 
It  certainly  does  not  indicate  reason.  If  a  human  being  should  do  so, 
we  should  think  the  action  unreasonable  and  even  a  sign  of  insanity. 
For  a  person  to  die  of  grief  is  not  evidence  of  moral  self-control,  nor 
of  the  supremacy  in  the  life  of  self-sacrificing  love  to  God  and  man. 
"We  are  told  of  "  the  ant  and  the  bee,  who  have  risen,  if  not  to  the 
virtue  of  all-embracing  charity,  at  least  to  the  virtues  of  self-sacrifice 
and  of  patriotism ;"..."  the  fact  that  the  great  majority  of  workers 
among  the  social  insects  are  barren  females  or  nuns,  devoting  themselves 
to  the  care  of  other  individuals'  offspring  by  an  act  of  sacrifice,  and 
that  by  means  of  that  self-sacrifice  these  communities  grow  large  and 
prosperous."  I  cannot  think  that  this  writer  or  any  other  sensible  per- 
son, after  reflecting  on  this  assertion,  can  suppose  that  the  working 
bees  have  the  slightest  consciousness  that  there  is  any  condition  of  life, 
better  than  their  own,  which  they  are  deprived  of,  or  of  any  act  or 
purpose  of  their  own  renouncing  that  happier  lifo  and  consecrating 
themselves  .to  the  service  of  the  community.  They  act  from  pure  in- 
stinct ;  they  do  what  their  nature  impels  them  to  do,  without  conscious- 
ness of  any  other  possibility.  It  cannot  be  supposed  that  these  creatures 
have  deliberately  chosen  to  set  aside  all  which  is  most  pleasant  to  bees 
and  which  themselves  are  conscious  they  should  enjoy,  and  to  devote 
themselves  to  a  life  of  labor  and  privation  in  order  to  promote  the  pros- 
perity of  the  community.  It  is  not  supposable  that  they  ever  had  the 
idea  of  the  community  and  its  prosperity,  any  more  than  the  coral 
zoophytes  have  of  the  Neptune's  cup  which  they  are  all  building  in 
unison.  Moral  character  lies  primarily  in  the  intelligent  choice  of  the 
end  of  action,  and  the  determination  of  the  energies  to  do  it,  resisting 
and  controlling  all  contrary  impulses  of  nature  in  subordination  to  the 
chosen  end ;  it  does  not  lie  in  instinctive  impulses.  A  lamb  is  gentle,  a 
tiger  ferocious  by  nature ;  the  ferocity  of  the  one  and  the  amiableness 
of  the  other  have  no  more  moral  character  than  the  offensiveness  of  the 
hyoscyamus  and  the  sweetness  of  the  rose. 

Many  facts  are  adduced  as  proving  moral  ideas  and  character  in 
brutes  which  prove  only  subjection  to  superior  skill  and  power,  and  fear 
of  inflicted  pain.  A  horse  exerting  itself  till  it  falls  exhausted  is  said 


540  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

"  to  show  an  honest  and  self-sacrificing  devotion  to  its  notion  of  duty." 
Once  when  I  was  with  a  distinguished  sportsman  in  the  vicinity  of 
Moosehead  lake  a  dog  joined  us  and  came  at  once  to  heel.  The  sports- 
man remarked,  "  That  dog  has  had  many  a  beating."  He  knew  that 
it  is  thus  a  dog  is  educated  and  trained.  The  same  is  exemplified  in 
the  methods  of  training  wild  elephants.  An  obedience  thus  springing 
from  subjection  to  superior  power  and  the  dread  of  inflicted  suffering  is 
no  proof  that  brutes  have  any  idea  of  moral  law,  or  of  the  distinction 
between  right  and  wrong,  or  of  the  sense  of  duty  or  obligation.  Alleged 
facts  supposed  to  indicate  remorse,  if  ascertained  to  be  facts  and  not 
mere  unauthenticated  "  dog-stories,"  may  be  explained  in  the  same  way. 
An  anonymous  writer  in  the  London  Spectator  relates  that  a  young 
fox-terrier,  which  had  often  been  punished  for  taking  a  handsomely 
carved  brush  from  the  table  and  playing  with  it,  after  having  been  left 
alone  in  the  room,  was  asked  by  its  master  on  his  return,  "  Have  you 
been  a  got>d  little  dog  ?"  whereupon  the  dog  put  its  tail  between  its  legs 
and  slunk  off  and  brought  the  brush  from  where  it  had  hidden  it.  On 
another  occasion  when  asked  the  same  question,  it  walked  off  slowly, 
with  the  same  look  of  shame,  and  lay  down  with  its  nose  pointing  to  a 
letter  bitten  and  torn  into  shreds.  The  writer  says :  "  I  was  much 
struck  with  what  appeared  to  me  a  remarkable  instance  of  a  dog  pos- 
sessing conscience."  But  it  proves  nothing  more  than  a  sense  of  having 
displeased  its  master  and  a  dread  of  punishment.  Lamettrie  evades 
the  difficulty  by  suggesting  that  morality  in  man  is  at  bottom  nothing 
but  fear  of  punishment.  He  thus  reduces  man  to  the  level  of  the  beast 
instead  of  lifting  the  beast  to  the  level  of  man. 

It  is  claimed  that  birds  and  beasts  appreciate  beauty  of  form,  color 
and  song,  and  that  this  is  an  important  factor  in  natural  selection.  But 
this  is  all  fancy.  The  song-bird  that  "  warbles  its  native  wood-notes 
wild"  does  not  please  itself  and  its  mate  any  more  than  the  Guinea-fowl 
does  by  its  incessant  creaking  note,  or  the  cat  by  its  caterwauling.  The 
spreading  of  the  wing  and  other  acts  and  cries  fancied  to  be  a  display 
of  beauty  to  the  sesthetic  eye  of  the  mate  are  better  explained  as  merely 
the  expression  of  animal  excitement,  like  the  singing  of  Chaucer's 
"January." 

It  is  also  claimed  that  some  brutes  show  in  their  actions  that  they 
possess  the  higher  or  intuitive  reason;  particularly  that  their  action 
accords  with  mathematical  truths  and  the  laws  of  mechanics.  It  has 
been  said  that  "  the  brain  of  the  ant  is  the  most  wonderful  little  morsel 
of  matter  in  existence."  The  honey-making  ants  of  Texas  and  New 
Mexico  are  said  to  build  their  ant-heaps  in  an  exact  square  four  to  five 
feet  on  a  side,  the  four  sides  fronting  exactly  North,  East,  South  and 
West.  Bees  are  said  to  conform  their  cells  to  a  geometrical  figure  and 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  MENTAL  POWER  OF  BRUTES.  541 

thus  obtain  the  maximum  of  room  with  the  minimum  of  material.  The 
fish-hawk  soaring  high  in  the  air  in  order  not  to  frighten  the  fish  before 
he  pounces  on  it,  acts  in  striking  it  as  if  he  had  measured  its  distance 
and  direction,  and  ascertained  the  refraction  of  light  passing  at  different 
angles  from  the  air  into  the  water.  A  little  fish,  the  Chcetodon  rostratus, 
shoots  a  drop  of  water  through  its  prolonged  snout  at  an  insect  flying 
near  the  water  and  brings  it  down  within  its  reach,  as  unerringly  as  if 
it  had  calculated  exactly  how  far  from  the  apparent  place  of  the  insect 
it  must  aim,  on  account  of  refraction,  in  order  to  hit  it.  But  if  facts 
like  these  are  urged  to  prove  the  higher  reason  in  brutes,  they  prove 
too  much.  If  they  prove  anything  in  that  direction,  it  is  that  the  fish, 
the  bird  and  the  bee,  before  every  act  of  the  kind,  must  solve  a  com- 
plicated problem  of  the  higher  mathematics.  And  since  in  the  case  of 
the  fish  and  the  hawk  the  conditions  of  the  problem  vary  in  every  act, 
not  only  must  the  problem  be  solved,  but  the  distances  and  the  angles 
of  incidence,  and  the  degree  of  refraction  must  previously  be  measured. 
This  is  not  supposable.  We  can  only  attribute  the  action  to  instinct. 
Accordingly  we  find  that  these  animals  do  not  depend  on  education. 
The  young  one  is  as  skillful  as  the  old.  Nature  acts  in  them  as  uner- 
ringly as  in  the 'planets.  But  man,  endowed  with  reason  and  free-will, 
begins  with  less  skill  than  the  brutes ;  he  learns,  he  makes  mistakes,  he 
educates  himself,  he  surpasses  himself  every  year.  In  the  brute  nature 
rules  and  the  will  is  no  more  than  the  impulse  of  nature.  In  man 
reason  guides,  the  will  chooses  and  determines,  and  man  within  the 
sphere  of  his  determination,  controls  nature.  It  must  be  added  that  a 
brute  is  no  more  capable  of  the  simplest  mathematical  calculation  than 
of  the  most  complex.  A  cat  misses  one  of  her  five  kittens  which  has 
been  taken  away,  not  through  the  arithmetical  reasoning,  5-1=4,  but 
by  sense ;  as  one  at  a  glance  without  counting  misses  an  article  of  bric- 
a-brac  removed  from  a  familiar  shelf.  Brutes  may  perhaps  be  capable 
of  reasoning  in  some  of  its  simplest  forms.  A  man  gave  half  an  orange 
to  his  orang-utan  and  hid  the  other  half  on  the  top  of  a  high  press.  He 
then  lay  down  and  pretended  to  go  to  sleep.  The  creature  presently 
approached  him  cautiously  and  being  apparently  convinced  that  he  was 
asleep  climbed  up  and  ate  the  remainder  of  the  orange  and  hid  the  peel 
among  some  shavings  in  the  grate.  He  then  examined  the  pretending 
sleeper  again,  and  lay  down  on  his  own  bed.*  This  seems  to  imply 
reasoning ;  and  it  may  be  argued  that  it  involves  a  recognition  of  in- 
tuitive principles  of  reason  which  are  laws  of  thought.  But  since 
animals  of  the  lower  orders,  even  so  low  as  the  coral  zoophytes,  do 
what,  if  done  by  man,  would  imply  reasoning  and  solving  complicated 

*Tylor:  Anthropology;  p.  50. 


542  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

mathematical  problems  and  the  concerted  action  of  multitudes  in  accord- 
ance with  a  complex  and  far  reaching  plan,  and  since  these  acts  must 
be  referred  to  instinct,  there  is  room  for  a  s.imilar  explanation  of  acts 
like  that  of  the  orang-utan,  in  which  if  there  was  reasoning  it  was  far 
simpler.  Such  acts  may  probably  be  explained  by  the  association  of 
one  remembered  perception  with  another,  or  some  simple  process  of 
thought  not  implying  the  knowledge  of  universal  principles  like  those 
on  which  mathematical  and  other  scientific  reasoning  rests.  The  female 
larva  of  the  stag-beetle,  about  to  become  a  chrysalis,  makes  a  hole  of 
just  its  own  size.  The  male  makes  double  his  own  length  because  he 
will  have  horns  as  long  as  his  body.  Perfect  insects  in  laying  their 
eggs  make  provision  for  the  food  of  the  larva  which  is  to  be  hatched. 
No  one  can  suppose  this  is  done  by  reasoning  founded  on  the  insect's  re- 
membrance of  its  own  needs  in  the  larva  state  and  foresight  of  the  needs 
of  the  coming  larva.  Why  then  may  not  simpler  processes  be  explained 
by  instinct? 

A  third  point  to  be  noticed  is,  that  the  argument  to  prove  that  man 
has  no  powers  differing  in  kind  from  the  brutes,  rests  on  anthropo- 
morphic conceptions  of  brute  life.  It  attributes  to  brutes  thoughts 
and  feelings  the  same  as  man  would  have  in  the  same  circumstances. 
It  interprets  into  the  life  of  the  brute  what  exists  only  in  the  con- 
sciousness of  man.  This  fault  is  conspicuous  in  Darwin's  discussion  of 
natural  selection. 

The  objection  against  personality  that  man  has  no  powers  differ- 
ing in  kind  from  those  of  brutes  is  grounded,  as  we  see  from  the  fore- 
going discussion,  on  errors  of  two  kinds.  On  the  one  hand,  the 
objector  fails  to  distinguish  the  attributes  of  personality  peculiar  to 
man  from  conscious  feeling,  volition  and  intelligence  of  a  lower  order, 
common  to  man  with  the  brutes.  Because  all  the  mental  powers  of 
brutes  are  found  also  in  man,  the  objector  jumps  to  the  inference  that 
all  the  mental  powers  of  man  are  found  also  in  the  brutes.  Besides 
this,  though  not  definitely  apprehending  what  the  attributes  of  person- 
ality are,  the  objector  urges  as  indicating  morality,  religion,  aesthetic 
emotion  or  reason  in  brutes,  actions  which  manifest  only  mental  powers 
of  a  lower  grade ;  for  example,  that  a  dog  fawning  on  its  master 
manifests  religion.  A  story  was  told  many  years  ago  of  two  dilettanti 
of  Boston  seeing  Fanny  Elsler  dance,  that  the  man  enraptured  turned 
and  exclaimed,  "Margaret,  this  is  poetry!"  But  she  replied,  "No, 
Paul,  this  is  religion!"  It  only  needs  an  exact  and  correct  definition 
of  religion,  or  of  the  other  attributes  of  personality  to  demonstrate  the 
inappositeness  of  many  of  the  facts  cited  in  support  of  the  objection 
and  the  inconclusiveness  of  the  reasoning  from  them. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  objection  is  grounded  in  biological  anthro- 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  MENTAL  POWER  OF  BRUTES.  543 

pomorphism,  which  interprets  into  the  acts  of  brutes,  thoughts,  motives, 
emotions  and  determinations  which  exist  only  in  the  man  who  observes 
them. 

3.  The  higher  attainments  of  men  are  impossible  to  brutes. 

The  first  of  these  attainments  is  language.  Brutes  are  capable  of 
expressing  a  present  feeling  or  impulse  by  gestures,  attitudes,  cries  and 
other  natural  signs.  In  this  way  they  hold  communication  with  one 
another.  But  this  is  not  language.  Language,  in  its  proper  signifi- 
cance, is  the  expression  of  general  notions  by  symbols.  It  presupposes 
the  power  of  abstraction  and  generalization.  The  symbols  may  be 
words  spoken  or  written  or,  as  with  deaf  mutes,  signs  made  with  the 
fino-ers  or  other  bodily  organs.  But  in  each  case  the  utterance  trans- 
cends the  natural  signs  by  which  feeling  is  spontaneously  expressed,  and 
is  made  by  symbols  fixed  by  thought  and  expressive  of  general  notions 
formed  by  thought  Some  brutes  can  articulate  words ;  they  have 
voice  but  not  langi^ige.  No  brute  has  ever  been  known  to  attain  to 
the  utterance  of  a  single  word  of  language  in  its  full  and  proper  mean- 
ing. This  implies  incapacity  to  abstract  and  generalize.  All  feeling 
carries  in  it  a  certain  indefinite  element  of  intelligence.  The  intelli- 
gence of  brutes  remains  mostly  swaddled  in  the  sensations  and  feelings. 
•Says  Lewes :  "  Between  the  extremes  of  human  intelligence — say  a 
Tasmanian  and  a  Shakespeare — there  are  infinitesimal  gradations, 
enabling  us  to  follow  the  development  of  the  one  into  the  other  without 
the  introduction  of  any  essentially  new  factor.  But  between  animal 
and  human  intelligence  there  is  a  gap  which  can  only  be  bridged  over 
by  an  addition  from  without.  That  bridge  is  the  language  of  symbols, 
at  once  the  cause  and  the  effect  of  civilization.  The  absurdity  of 
supposing  that  any  ape  could  under  any  normal  circumstances  con- 
struct a  scientific  theory,  analyze  a  fact  into  its  component  factors, 
frame  to  himself  a  picture  of  the  life  led  by  his  ancestors,  or  con- 
sciously regulate  his  conduct  with  a  view  to  the  welfare  of  remote  de- 
scendants, is  so  glaring,  that  we  need  not  wronder  at  profoundly  medi- 
tative minds  having  been  led  to  reject  with  scorn  the  hypothesis  which 
seeks  for  an  explanation  of  human  intelligence  in  the  functions  of  the 
bodily  organism  common  to  man  and  animals,  and  having  had 
recourse  to  the  hypothesis  of  a  spiritual  agent  superadded  to  the 
organism."* 

A  brute  does  not  change  his  voice.  An  ass's  colt  suckled  by  a  mare 
and  brought  up  among  horses  never  loses  its  bray,  nor  learns  to  neigh 
like  a  horse.  A  child  of  whatever  race  speaks  the  language  of  those 
among  whom  it  is  brought  up. 

*  Problems  of  Life  and  Mind.    First  Series.     Vol.  I.,  144,  §g  52,  53. 


544  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

A  second  attainment,  impossible  to  brutes,  is  the  use  of  tools. 
Wherever  an  implement  is  found,  if  only  a  stone  ever  so  roughly 
chipped,  we  infer  at  once  that  it  was  made  and  used  by  man.  This  is 
not  because  the  brutes  do  not  have  hands ;  for  apes,  which  have  hands, 
do  not  use  tools.  If  it  is  a  fact  that  an  apa,  untaught  by  man,  ever 
uses  a  stone  to  crack  a  nut,  yet  it  is  still  a  fact  that  an  ape  never ' 
shapes  a  stone  or  a  stick,  nor  ties  a  stone  to  a  stick  to  fit  it  for  use  as 
a  tool. 

A  third  attainment  never  made  by  brutes  is  the  use  of  fire.  They 
enjoy  the  warmth  of  the  fire  kindled  by  man  but  they  cannot  preserve 
much  less  kindle  it.  Mr.  Lubbock  says  that  some  races  of  men  have 
been  found  who  knew  nothing  about  fire.*  This  may  be  doubted. 
Traces  of  fire  are  found  in  the  earliest  pile-dwellings  and  in  the  Danish 
shell-mounds.  In  the  caves  where  the  remains  of  the  earliest  men 
have  been  found,  charcoal  and  burnt  bones  have  been  discovered 
with  the  bones  of  the  mammoth  and  the  cave-btar.  At  Aurignac,  in 
the  Pyrenees,  not  only  coal  and  ashes  were  found,  but  also  fragments  of 
fissile  sandstone  reddened  by  heat  which  must  have  formed  a  hearth,  f 
In  the  earliest  periods  "  the  rude  cave-men  made  fires  to  cook  their 
food  and  warm  themselves  by."  Mr.  Tylor  says :  "  No  savage  tribe 
seems  really  to  have  been  found  so  low  as  to  be  without  fire."J  If 
man  ever  existed  without  fire,  he  had  discovered  it  at  the  earliest 
period  to  which  his  existence  can  be  traced,  has  preserved  it  ever  since 
and  made  the  most  Avonderful  applications  of  it  in  supplying  his 
wants  and  advancing  his  civilization.  The  contrast  with  the  utter 
helplessness  of  the  most  intelligent  brutes  in  this  respect  is  very 
striking. 

Man  also  is  capable  of  progress  both  as  an  individual  and  in  society. 
Brutes  improve  only  by  natural  selection  or  by  man's  agency  in  do- 
mestication. They  are  incapable  of  progress  by  self-education  and  the 
transmission  of  their  discoveries  and  inventions  to  posterity. 

The  difference  between  the  lowest  savage  and  the  highest  brute  is 
immeasurably  greater  than  that  between  the  lowest  savage  and  the 
most  highly  endowed  of  civilized  men.  Laura  Bridgman,  blind,  deaf 
and  dumb  from  infancy,  and  with  scarcely  any  sense  of  taste  and  smell, 
can  now  write  a  good  letter,  maintain  an  intelligent  conversation  by 
signs,  and  do  various  kinds  of  work ;  she  has  also  high  moral  and 
religious  culture.  No  teaching  and  training  of  the  most  intelligent 
brute  can  approximate  to  such  education  and  culture,  or  even  make 
the  least  beginning  of  them.  Lamettrie  became  deeply  interested  in 


*  Prehistoric  Times,  p.  453. 

f  Lyell :  Antiquity  of  Man,  pp.  181-193.  J  Anthropology,  p.  260. 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  MENTAL  POWER  OF  BRUTES.  545 

a  then  recently  invented  method  of  educating  the  deaf  and  dumb.  He 
compared  apes  to  deaf  mutes,  and  expressed  a  desire  for  a  large  and 
clever  ape  to  educate  by  the  new  method.  Had  he  tried  the  experi- 
ment it  would  have  been  instructive  to  contrast  his  failure  with  the 
education  of  Laura  Bridgman.  Dr.  Maudsley  says :  "  However  low  a 
human  being  may  fall,  he  never  reverts  to  the  type  of  an  animal;  the 
fallen  majesty  of  mankind  being  manifest  in  the  worst  wrecks.  Cer- 
tainly there  may  be  sometimes  a  general  resemblance  to  one  of  the 
lower  animals,  but  the  resemblance  is  never  anything  more  than  a 
general  and  superficial  one ;  all  the  special  differences  in  mental  mani- 
festations are  still  more  or  less  apparent,  just  as  the  special  differences  in 
anatomical  structure  still  remain.  The  idiot  with  hairy  back  may  go 
on  his  knees  and  'baa'  like  a  sheep,  as  did  one  of  which  Pinel  tells, 
but  as  he  does  not  get  the  wool  and  conformation  of  the  sheep,  so  he 
does  not  get  its  psychical  characters ;  he  is  not  adapted  for  the  relations 
of  the  sheep,  and  if  placed  in  them  would  surely  perish ;  and  he  does 
exhibit  unconscious  traces  of  his  adaptation  to  his  relations  as  a  human 
being  which  the  best  developed  animal  never  would.  So  also  with 
regard  to  man's  next  of  kin,  the  monkeys ;  no  possible  arrest  of  devel- 
opment, no  degradation  of  human  nature  through  generations,  will 
bring  him  to  the  special  type  of  the  monkey."* 

Man  has  also  the  capacity  of  falling  by  sin,  which  the  brute  has  not. 
By  the  minding  of  the  flesh  instead  of  the  minding  of  the  spirit,  he 
perverts,  abases  and  corrupts  himself,  and  fails  of  all  the  true  ends  of 
his  being.  No  brute  is  capable  of  this.  Prof.  Tayler  Lewis  published 
an  article  maintaining  that  the  highest  power  in  man,  by  which  he  is 
completely  distinguished  from  the  brute,  is  his  power  to  "  fall "  from 
his  normal  condition  by  his  own  action.  The  Duke  of  Argyll,  in  his 
essays  on  "  The  Unity  of  Nature,"  advances  the  same  thought.  There 
seems  to  be  much  force  in  the  argument.  In  brutes  we  do  not  dis- 
cover a  common  disposition  to  actions  contrary  to  their  constitution 
and  tending  to  weaken  and  destroy  not  only  the  individual  but  the 
race.  In  them  the  evolution  passes  through  all  its  stages  with  perfect 
accuracy  to  the  end,  the  propensities  developed  in  it  are  in  harmony 
with  their  powers,  and  these  in  their  functions  are  in  harmony  with 
the  constitution  of  things.  This  must  be  so,  according  to  the  theory 
of  evolution,  because  the  theory  assumes  that  the  need  of  a  function 
leads  to  the  evolution  of  its  organ,  and  the  organ  acts  to  supply  the 
need.  In  man  alone  we  find  a  persistent  tendency  to  action  vhich 
leads  to  the  vitiation  and  even  the  destruction  instead  of  the  peifec- 
tion  of  his  being  and  his  race;  action  in  disharmony  with  himself 

*  Physiology  and  Pathology  of  the  Mind,  p.  290. 

35 


546  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

and  with  his  highest  functions  in  the  world,  and  with  his  own  con- 
sciousness of  duty  to  obey  what  he  knows  is  the  supreme  law  of  his 
being.  A  very  large  part  of  mankind,  embracing  nearly  all  savage 
tribes  and  multitudes  of  civilized  men,  exhibit  dispositions,  habits  and 
actions  which,  as  tending  to  corrupt,  weaken  and  destroy  the  race, 
are  unnatural  and  monstrous.  They  enslave  and  maltreat  their  females, 
murder  their  children,  kill  and  eat  one  another.  So  that,  as  the 
Duke  of  Argyll  intimates,  there  is  a  certain  literal  truth  in  the  com- 
parison of  man  with  the  dragons : 

"  Dragons  of  the  prime, 
That  tear  each  other  in  their  slime, 
Were  mellow  music  matched  with  him." 

The  most  horrible  and  loathsome  brutes  show  no  tendency  to  ac- 
tion contrary  to  their  own  nature  and  destructive  of  their  own  spe- 
cies. Here,  then,  is  something  exceptional  in  man,  inconsistent  with 
the  unity  of  nature ;  something  which  can  be  explained  by  free-will, 
but  not  by  natural  evolution  and  the  dominance  of  the  forces  of 
nature  through  instinct.  If  man  is  in  his  entire  being  the  product 
of  evolution,  or  of  nature-forces  only  in  whatever  way  acting,  then  in 
his  lowest  stage  and  onward  through  all  his  history  he  must  show  the 
simplicity  of  brute  life  and  its  harmony  with  itself.  His  conscious 
sin  and  wrong-doing  reveal  him  as  a  free  agent,  above  nature,  trans- 
scending  its  fixed  course,  using  his  own  free-will  in  violation  of  the 
law  of  his  being,  and  thus  different  from  the  brutes  which  exist  and 
act  only  in  the  fixed  and  necessary  course  of  nature. 

III.  If  it  should  be  made  evident  that  certain  brutes  possess  the 
distinctive  characteristics  of  personality,  this  would  prove  only  that 
these  particular  Animals  are  personal  beings,  having  reason,  rational 
sensibility  and  free-will,  subject  to  the  law  of  God  and  capable  of 
knowing  and  serving  him.  It  would  not  prove  that  other  species  of 
animals  were  persons.  It  would  not  disprove  the  personality  of  man. 
It  would  enlarge  the  number  of  personal  beings.  The  distinction 
between  the  personal  and  the  impersonal  would  remain  as  sharply 
defined  as  ever.  It  would  be  pleasanter,  certainly,  to  enlarge  the  area 
of  personality  by  finding  some  animals  qualified  to  be  in  it,  than  with 
Comte  to  obliterate  it  altogether  and  insist  that  man  must  give  up  his 
claim  to  be  the  lowest  of  the  angels  and  content  himself  with  being 
the  highest  of  the  brutes.  If  any  animals  have  these  distinctive 
attributes,  we  cordially  welcome  them  to  the  fraternity  of  personal 
and  immortal  beings ;  concurring  with  the  "  untutored  mind  "  of  "  the 

poor  Indian," 

"  Who  thinks  admitted  to  that  equal  sky, 
His  faithful  dog  shall  bear  him  company." 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  MENTAL  POWER  OF  BRUTES.  547 

IV.  By  virtue  of  these  distinctive  characteristics,  man,  though  im- 
plicated in  nature  through  his  bodily  organization,  is  in  his  person- 
ality supernatural ;  the  brute  is  wholly  submerged  in  nature.  Man  in 
the  use  of  reason  can  lift  himself  above  the  plane  of  his  own  nature, 
can  survey  and  measure  it,  and  determine  his  course ;  he  can  put 
himself  in  opposition  to  his  natural  impulses  and  regulate,  develop  or 
subdue  them.  He  is  in  nature  like  a  ship  in  the  sea,  in  it,  yet  above 
it,  guiding  his  course  by  observing  the  heavens  even  against  wind 
and  current.  A  brute  has  no  such  power ;  it  is  in  nature  like  a  balloon 
wholly  immersed  in  the  air  and  driven  by  its  currents  with  no  power 
of  steering. 

1.  To  this  it  may  be  objected  that  the  sensitivity  of  the  brute  cannot  be 
correlated  and  identified  with  motion  any  more  than  the  personality  of 
man  can  be ;  that,  therefore,  if  brutes  are  not  supernatural  man  cannot 
be ;  but  if  man  is  supernatural  then  brutes  must  be  so. 

The  fact  alleged  in  the  objection  is  admitted,  but  the  inference  is  not 
justified.  The  fact  that  conscious  sensitivity  cannot  be  identified  with 
motion  does  not  prove  personality  either  in  men  or  beasts.  It  simply 
proves  that  animated  life  is  more  than  a  mode  of  motion  and  cannot 
be  explained  by  mechanism.  It  proves  the  same  of  personality.  But 
the  existence  of  personal  beings  is  proved  by  the  evidence  of  the  facts 
of  personality  known  to  man  in  his  consciousness  of  .himself  and  his 
acquaintance  with  other  men.  The  line  of  demarkation  between  the 
supernatural  and  nature  does  not  lie  between  the  living  organism 
and  the  inorganic,  nor  between  the  animate  and  the  inanimate  vital 
organisms,  but  between  the  personal  and  the  impersonal.  Brutes 
may  have  organic  life  and  sensitivity,  and  yet  remain  submerged  in 
nature.  It  is  not  life  and  sensitivity  which  lift  men  above  nature,  but 
it  is  the  distinctive  characteristics  of  personality. 

The  objection,  therefore,  avails  nothing  either  in  identifying  per- 
sonality with  animate  life  or  in  identifying  either  these  or  inanimate 
organic  life  with  motion  and  mechanism. 

±  There  are  three  reasons  why  it  is  unscientific  to  affirm  that  life 
is  merely  a  mode  of  motion.  One  is  that  no  fact  of  abiogenesis  or  the 
origination  of  organic  life  has  ever  been  discovered.  The  second  is, 
it  is  impossible  to  identify  consciousness  or  sensitivity  with  motion,  and, 
it  seems  to  be  proved  that  it  is  never  transformed  into  motion,  nor 
motion  into  it.  The  third  is  that  it  involves  the  incredible  doctrine 
that  brutes  and  inc-n  are  mere  machines  or  automata.  It  rests  on  the 
materialistic  assertion  that  the  universe  is  a  machine  and  all  the  pro- 
cesses and  powers  in  it  are  mechanical.  Brutes  and  men  therefore  are 
merely  machines.  The  materialistic  scientists  of  the  present  day  do 
not  avow  the  old  doctrine  that  brutes  are  automata,  and  that  a  dog's 


548  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

howling  is  only  the  noise  of  the  running  machinery.  But  in  affirming 
that  no  force  exists  except  the  lowest,  which  is  mechanical  or  motor- 
force,  they  leave  themselves  no  explanation  of  the  action  of  brutes 
except  the  mechanical;  and  mechanical  action  is  the  action  of  a 
machine.  They  speak  of  organic  molecules.  Inorganic  changes  they 
explain  by  a  greater  complexity  of  the  molecule ;  but  an  organic  mole- 
cule can  be  nothing  else  but  a  more  complex  molecule,  because  they 
have  left  themselves  nothing  but  the  differing  number  and  relative 
position  of  atoms  and  molecules  by  which  to  distinguish  the  organic 
molecule  from  the  inorganic.  Mr.  Huxley,  in  his  lecture  on  "  The 
Hypothesis  that  Animals  are  Automata,"  calls  them  conscious  automata. 
But  a  conscious  automaton  or  machine  is  a  self-contradictory  phrase. 
Consciousness  is  not  essential  to  a  machine.  A  machine  is  complete 
without  it.  If  consciousness  is  added  to  a  machine  it  is  something 
which  is  not  mechanical.  If  it  is  a  reality  it  must  be  accounted  for  by 
some  power  not  mechanical.  But  by  the  supposition  there  is  no  power 
except  the  mechanical  force  in  the  universe.  Nothing  then  is  accom- 
plished by  Mr.  Huxley  except  to  affix  biological  terms  to  mechanical 
processes  and  energies.  But  to  call  the  parts  and  processes  of  a  ma- 
chine by  biological  names  does  not  annul  their  character  as  mechan- 
ism, it  only  disguises  it.  It  has  become  common  in  discussing  sociology 
to  treat  society  as  a  living  organism.  But  according  to  crude  material- 
ism, this  social  organization  itself  would  be  only  an  automaton  called 
by  a  biological  name. 

I  have  already  pointed  out  some  of  the  difficulties  involved  in  the 
materialism  which  begins  with  the  lowest  instead  of  the  highest  and 
attempts  to  explain  the  universe  as  the  evolution  of  matter  and  motor- 
force.  And  here,  again,  the  exceedingly  complicated  and  fanciful  con- 
trivances resorted  to  in  order  to  explain  observed  facts  in  accordance 
with  this  theory  remind  us  of  the  Ptolemaic  astronomers  who 

"  Gird  the  sphere 

With  centric  and  eccentric  scribbled  o'er, 
Cycle  and  epicycle,  orb  in  orb ;" 

and  when  a  new  discovery  was  made,  were  obliged  to  feign  a  few  more 
"  eccentrics  and  epicycles,  and  such  engines  of  orbs,"  as  Lord  Bacon 
calls  them,  in  the  already  intricate  diagram  of  the  heavens.  But  when 
the  true  conception  was  attained  all  these  complex  figures  gave  place 
to  simplicity.  The  very  fancifulness  and  complexity  of  the  motions 
supposed  to  account  for  observed  facts  on  the  theory  that  every  energy 
is  transformed  motion,  is  a  presumption  against  the  truth  of  the 
theory  and  will  some  day  give  place  to  some  theory  more  simple  and 
reasonable 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  MENTAL  POWER  OF  BRUTES.  549 

3.  All  is  explained  by  the  true  evolution :  absolute  being  evermore 
individuating  and  revealing  its  inexhaustible  potential  powers  and 
resources  in  the  limitations  and  conditions  of  space  and  time ;  and 
i imminently  active  in  the  universe  by  which  it  is  revealed.  In  whatever 
form  matter  is  known  to  us,  whether  as  the  gross  matter  which  we  see 
and  handle,  or  the  finer  stuff  which  by  inference  we  dimly  apprehend, 
we  cannot  suppose  it  to  be  in  its  primitive  form,  but  only  to  have  come 
into  that  state  through  we  know  not  what  changes.  So  the  evolution 
always  on,  in  the  progress  of  time  revealing  higher  and  more 
varied  powers  and  perfections,  and  it  may  be  in  remote  space  revealing 
new  worlds  and  systems,  of  which  already  science  notes  intimations 
in  tiie  dissipation  into  depths  of  space  beyond  our  system,  we  know  not 
whither,  of  never  returning  energy.  Thus  the  creative  process  which 
in  the  Absolute  is  the  continuous  limitation  and  indiviauation  of  its 
power,  in  the  finite  is  its  continuous  enlargement  and  evolution.  And 
far  beyond  this  earth,  beyond  this  solar  system,  beyond  this  Milky- Way 
of  stars,  the  world-spirit  works,  revealing  God. 

"  In  the  tides  of  life,  in  the  storms  of  motion, 

I  toss  up  and  down, 

I  weave  hither  and  thither, 

Birth  and  the  grave, 

An  eternal  ocean, 

A  waving  and  flowing, 

A  life  all-glowing, 

Thus  work  I  at  the  whizzing  loom  of  time, 
And  weave  a  living  garment  for  the  Deity." 

And  in  view  of  spheres  beyond  our  imaginings  supernatural  intelligences 
may  sing, 

"And  swift  and  swift  beyond  conceiving 

The  splendor  of  the  world  goes  round, 
Day's  Eden  brightness  still  relieving 

The  awful  night's  intense  profound  ; 
The  ocean's  tides  in  foam  are  breaking 

Against  the  rock's  deep  bases  hurled, 
And  both,  the  spheric  race  partaking, 

Eternal,  swift,  are  onwards  whirled." 

There  is  nothing  unreasonable  or  unscientific  in  the  supposition  that 
in  animated  organisms  there  is  the  manifestation  of  mechanical  force 
and  something  more;  and  yet  that  the  "something  more"  does  not 
attain  to  the  self-conscious  rational  freedom  distinctive  of  personality. 
I  have  classed  as  mechanical  force,  or  force  in  its  lowest  plane  as  mani- 
fested to  us,  attraction,  repulsion,  momentum  and  the  forces  known  to 
us  as  light,  heat  and  electricity.  Some  scientists  hold  that  attraction 


550     '  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

causes  motion,  others  that  the  momentum  of  moving  corpuscles  causes 
attraction.  Each  supposition  involves  apparently  insuperable  diffi- 
culties. It  is  sufficient  to  know  that  these  forces  seem  always  to  act  in 
connection  with  matter  as  perceptible  by  us,  and  may  be  classed  to- 
gether as  mechanical.  Thence  in  successive  stages  the  absolute  being 
reveals  higher  powers  as  matter  is  brought  into  receptivity  for  them, 
till  personality  appears  in  man ;  and  probably  what  we  call  death  is 
the  revelation  of  that  same  personality  in  a  medium  of  action  and  con- 
ditions of  existence  transcending  our  senses.  It  is,  then,  reasonable  to 
suppose  that  the  life  of  a  brute,  though  its  organization  has  become 
adequate  to  be  a  medium  of  sensitivity,  is  not  yet  capable  of  revealing 
personality,  and  the  life  remains  completely  immerged  in  nature.  But 
when  man  appears  the  individuation  has  reached  a  point  in  wrhich  he 
rises  above  nature  though  still  in  it,  distinguishes  himself  from  nature, 
and  knows  himself  as  self-directing,  self-conditioning,  self-exerting  and 
free.  Thus  in  the  whole  evolution  God  is  the  Alpha  and  the  Omega  ; 
it  comes  from  God,  it  reveals  God,  and  at  last  brings  forth  beings  who 
rising  out  of  unreasoning  nature  know  God  and,  distinct  from  him  in 
being,  reunite  themselves  to  him  by  faith  and  love  in  the  unity  of  a 
moral  system. 

Physical  science,  confining  itself  within  its  own  sphere,  rightly  notes 
only  facts  observed  or  inferred,  and  their  classification  by  resemblance 
and  their  co-ordination  in  uniform  sequence.  But  it  has  no  right  to 
declare  as  a  fact  of  physical  science  that  the  universe  consists  only  of 
matter  and  mechanical  force.  It  has  no  concern  with  the  first  cause 
and  absolute  ground  of  all  that  exists.  It  therefore  properly  confines 
itself  to  what  it  observes,  it  treats  the  forces  which  come  under  its  ob- 
servation as  resident  in  or  inseparable  from  nature,  without  asking  how 
they  came  to  be  there  and  what  sustains  them  in  action.  Brought  at 
every  turn  of  investigation  to  confront  the  fact  that  there  is  a  power 
immanently  active  in  the  universe  transcending  all  which  by  its 
empirical  methods  it  can  weigh,  or  measure,  or  define,  it  may  assume 
one  supreme,  inexhaustible  force,  everywhere  acting,  the  source  of  all 
change,  revealing  itself  in  many  forms,  incapable  of  absolute  increase 
or  diminution.  And  because  this  force  transcends  its  empirical 
methods,  it  may  call  it  unknowable.  But  it  has  no  right  to  say 
that  this  unknowable  is  only  mechanical  force ;  it  has  no  right  to  say 
that  nothing  exists  but  matter  and  mechanical  force,  and  that  the 
universe  is  merely  a  machine.  Because  in  so  doing  it  sets  aside  facts 
empirically  known,  that  other  forces,  chemical,  vital,  personal,  exist ; 
and  in  trying  to  identify  these  with  mechanism  it  is  driven  to  such 
violent  theorizing  that  thought  well  nigh  strangles  itself  in  its  own 
contortions ;  because,  also,  if  the  universal  force  is  mechanical  it  is  no 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  MEXTAL  POWER  OF  BRUTES.  551 

longer  unknown,  but  science  by  empirical  methods  has  found  and 
exactly  ascertained  and  denned  the  first  cause  and  absolute  ground  of 
all  things  ;  and,  finally,  because  it  arbitrarily  shuts  out  all  philosophical 
and  theological  inquiry,  and  not  only  affirms  that  all  knowledge  is 
limited  to  the  empirical,  but  proceeds  to  declare  dogmatically  that 
physical  science  within  its  empirical  limits  includes  knowledge  of  every 
thing  that  exists,  or  ever  has  existed. 

V.  Man  is  spirit ;  the  brute  is  not.  A.  personal  being  considered 
abstractly  from  all  connection  with  matter  or  nature  is  called  spirit. 
It  may  exist  in  and  act  through  a  bodily  organization. 

The  reasons  for  belief  in  the  existence  of  spirit  have  been  already 
set -forth.  The  objection  now  arises  that  if  man  is  spirit  we  must  attri- 
bute a  spirit  or  soul  to  every  brute ;  not  to  the  more  intelligent  only, 
but  to  the  lowest,  to  the  infusoria,  to  every  organic  cell  or  mass  of 
tissue  which  has  sensitivity  in  the  slightest  degree.  And  in  fact  the 
argument  to  prove  that  there  is  a  spirit  in  man  has  often  been  presented 
so  as  to  make  this  a  necessary  inference. 

On  this  question  it  is  impossible  to  dogmatize.  But  from  the  posi- 
tions already  secured  it  is  evident  that  the  assumption  of  individuated 
brute  souls  is  unnecessary.  The  phenomena  of  animated  life  are 
adequately  accounted  for  by  the  integral  and  absolute  power  imma- 
nently  active  in  nature,  evolving  matter  into  more  complex  and  more 
highly  elaborated  forms,  and  revealing  itself  through  energies  of  higher 
and  higher  orders  as  matter  becomes  capable  of  being  a  medium  for 
their  manifestation.  It  is  no  more  necessary  to  refer  the  vitality  of 
every  brute  to  an  individuated  soul  than  it  is  to  refer  the  vitality  of 
every  plant,  or  the  chemical  force  in  water,  or  the  mechanical  force  of 
a  machine  to  an  individuated  soul.  We  have  seen  that  the  absolute 
power  reveals  itself  by  limiting  and  conditioning  and  thus  individuat- 
ing its  inexhaustible  energy.  Conditioning  its  energy  in  time  and 
space,  matter  appears ;  conditioning  its  energy  in  space,  time  and  mat- 
ter, mechanical  force  and  mechanical  structures  appear ;  conditioning 
its  energy  in  space,  time,  matter  and  mechanical  force,  elemental  force 
and  chemical  compounds  appear ;  conditioning  its  energy  in  all  these, 
organic  but  inanimate  life  appears ;  and  continuing  to  exert  its  energy 
individuated  under  all  these  conditions,  animated  life  appears.  But  in 
none  of  these  is  the,  as  it  were,  imprisoned  energy  so  individuated  that 
at  any  point  out  of  the  fixed  course  of  nature,  or  distinguishes 
itself  from  the  conditions  which  determine  it  from  without.  But  as 
the  divine  energy  continues  active  under  these  conditions  it  pushes 
forth  into  man,  and  in  him  is  so  far  individuated  that  the  man  knows 
himself  as  an  individual  persisting  through  all  changes  in  unchanging 
identity,  endowed  with  reason,  rational  sensibility  and  free-will,  dis- 


552  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

tinguisliing  himself  from  nature,  and  endowed  with  a  directive  and 
determining  power  by  which  he  directs  his  own  energies  and  reacts  on 
nature  to  direct  its  energies  to  accomplish  his  own  chosen  ends.  He  is 
conditioned  not  merely  in  space  and  time  but  also  in  self- consciousness. 
Thus  rising  above  nature  he  is  self-conditioning,  self-regulating  and 
directing,  self-determining  and  self-exerting.  For  this  reason  it  is  ne- 
cessary to  recognize  him  as  a  spirit,  and  thus  distinct  from  and  above 
nature.  This  recognition  is  scientific,  because  it  is  necessary  to  explain 
the  facts  certainly  known  in  self-consciousness.  As  proving  that  man 
is  spirit,  Kant  emphasizes  the  practical  reason,  the  imperative  of  con- 
science. It  is  by  no  means  the  only  evidence,  but  it  is  sufficient.  The 
consciousness  of  duty  is  as  immediate  as  any  intuition  of  sense ;  duty 
implies  free-will ;  free-will  implies  that  man  is  spirit ;  the  consciousness 
of  duty  gives  contents  in  consciousness  to  the  idea  of  God.  The  imper- 
ative of  the  practical  reason  commands  the  surrender  of  life  itself  to 
duty ;  this  would  be  the  extinction  of  the  individual  himself,  if  the 
individual  is  only  in  the  course  of  nature ;  thus  it  is  decisive  evidence 
that,  however  implicated  in  nature,  man  is  also  spirit ;  he  belongs  to  a 
realm  transcending  nature. 

For  similar  reasons  it  is  unnecessary  to  adopt  the  threefold  classifica- 
tion of  man  as  body,  soul  and  spirit.  Thus  Aristotle  (De  Anima)  dis- 
tinguishes in  man  a  lower  soul  not  separable  from  the  body,  from  the 
higher  soul  which  is  separable  from  it.  The  former  he  calls  the 
IvreXfysta  of  the  body,  that  by  which  it  is  actually  a  living  organiza- 
tion, the  formative  power  which  like  an  impression  on  wax  gives  form 
to  the  wax  but  has  no  existence  separate  from  the  wax.  This  is  the 
subject  of  sensations  and  passions.  But  the  higher  soul,  the  vous  or 
Osatfrqrtzrj  duvajMs,  has  transcendent  powers,  and  therefore  is  "  separable 
from  the  body,  as  that  which  is  eternal  and  immortal  from  that  which 
is  corruptible."*  This  is  well  said,  as  disclaiming  the  doctrine  of  the 
Pythagoreans  and  Platonists  that  all  souls,  alike  of  animals  and  men, 
are  immortal.  But  it  is  unnecessary  to  assume  that  this  formative 
actuality  of  animated  life,  inseparable  from  the  living  body,  is  a  soul. 
It  is  sufficient  to  say  that  man  is  a  spirit  acting  in  and  through  a  living 
animal  organization. 

Mr.  Lewes  objects  that  the  spiritual  hypothesis  is  untenable,  because 
it  is  unscientific.  It  is  an  imaginary  hypothesis  incapable  of  verifica- 
tion. It  also  attempts  to  account  for  phenomena  by  introducing  an 
unknowable;  "the  spirit  is  proposed  as  an  agent,  yet  of  its  nature  and 
agency  we  know  absolutely  nothing."  This  objection  is  founded  on 
the  assumption  that  consciousness  is  not  a  source  of  knowledge ;  that 

*  Lib.  L,  Cap.  I.,  and  Lib,  II.,  Cap.  I. 


MATERIALISTIC  OBJECTION  FROM  MEXTAL  POWER  OF  BRUTES.  553 

man  has  no  knowledge  of  himself  and  his  own  powers ;  that  the  ob- 
jective alone  can  be  known.  The  falsity  of  this  position  has  already 
been  exposed. 

Mr.  Lewes  further  objects  that,  if  the  existence  of  spirit  is  granted, 
it  does  not  account  for  the  facts.  Man,  he  argues,  possessing  this  spirit, 
but  isolated  from  society,  would  remain  without  language,  without  the 
moral  ideas  of  duty  to  others,  without  the  "  capitalized  experience"  of 
the  race,  and  "  could  no  more  manifest  the  activities  classed  under 
Intellect  and  Morality  than  the  animal  could."  The  reasoning  would 
be  equally  valid  if  he  had  argued  that  if  there  were  no  external  world, 
material  or  mental,  this  man  possessing  spirit  but  existing  alone, 
would  have  no  knowledge  of  an  external  world  or  of  other 
rational  beings.  The  existence  of  spirit  in  man  is  not,  as  the  objection 
assumes  it  is,  incompatible  with  existence  in  society.  If  a  spirit  does 
not  exist  in  society,  it  can  have  no  knowledge  of  society  and  social 
relations ;  but  if  it  does  exist  in  society,  it  will  have  that  knowledge. 
I  cannot  conceive  of  anything  in  this  fact  which  could  have  presented 
itself  as  an  objection  in  the  mind  of  Mr.  Lewes  or  of  any  other  intel- 
ligent person.  Mr.  Spencer  speaks  of  "  the  prevalent  anxiety  to  estab- 
lish some  absolute  distinction  between  animal  intelligence  and  human 
intelligence;"  the  objections  sometimes  urged  cannot  but  suggest  a 
"  prevalent  anxiety  "  to  subvert  this  common  belief. 

Mr.  Lewes  further  objects  that  "  the  spiritualist  hypothesis  of  an 
imaginary  agent "  is  unnecessary,  because  all  the  facts  "  can  be  per- 
fectly explained  by  a  real  agent — the  Social  Organism."  When  Spencer 
and  Lewes  say  that  society  is  an  organism  and  attempt  to  construct  a 
sociology  on  that  principle,  they  overlook  the  difference  between  a 
race  or  species  and  an  individual  organism  Moreover,  they  overlook 
the  fact  that  the  institutions,  civilization  and  unity  of  human  society 
can  be  explained  only  as  those  of  a  rational  and  moral  system,  not  as 
those  of  a  race  of  brutes.  Thus  they  leave  out  the  most  essential  and 
distinctive  facts  of  human  society.  It  is  amusing  to  find  Mr.  Lewes 
speaking  of  this  intellectual  fiction,  "the  Social  Organism,"  as  a  "real 
agent,"  and  quietly  setting  aside  as  an  "  imaginary  agent"  the  rational, 
free  personality  which  every  man  knows  in  his  own  self-consciousness, 
and  the  reality  of  which  is  an  essential  factor  in  all  knowledge.* 

Mr.  Spencer  objects  that  a  babe  at  birth  manifests  no  more  rational- 
ity than  a  dog ;  that  its  development  to  rationality  is  by  infinitesimal 
gradations ;  and  that  "  there  is  a  series  of  infinitesimal  gradations 
through  which  brute  rationality  may  pass  into  human  rationality." 
May  pass — but  there  is  no  proof  that  it  does  pass — a  very  common 

»  Problems  of  Life  and  Mind.     First  Series.     Vol.  II.,  pp.  144-146,  §  54. 


554  THE   PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

inconsequence  in  the  arguments  of  skeptical  evolutionists.  Here  also 
is  the  false  reasoning  which  I  have  exposed  in  a  former  chapter,  that 
powers  belonging  to  the  human  mind  must  be  measured  by  the 
powers  of  infants.  The  objection  is  set  aside  by  two  indisputable 
facts:  the  one  that  man  has  the  attributes  of  personality,  reason, 
free-will,  rational  sensibility,  consciousness  of  self,  which  so  far  as  we 
have  evidence,  brutes  have  not ;  .the  other,  that  every  babe  normally 
developed  manifests  these  distinctive  powers,  and  no  brute  however 
developed  and  trained,  ever  manifests  anyone  of  them.  Mr.  Spencer 
further  objects  that  savages  are  gradually  developed  to  the  civilized 
man.  To  which  it  is  sufficient  to  answer  that,  according  to  the  in- 
vestigations and  conclusions  of  Tylor,  Quatrefages,  Tiele,  Peschei 
and  other  anthropologists,  all  savage  tribes,  however  low,  so  far  as 
known,  have  religiousness  and  the  sense  of  moral  obligation  and 
distinctions,  and  otherwise  manifest  attributes  of  personality.  Thus, 
as  has  been  before  shown,  the  difference  between  the  highest  brute  and 
the  lowest  animal,  being  a  difference  of  kind,  is  greater  than  between 
the  lowest  savage  and  the  greatest  intellect  of  civilized  nations,  the 
difference  in  this  case  being  only  of  degree.* 

*  Spencer's  Psychology,  Vol.  I.,  pp.  460-462  g  206. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 
THE  TWO  SYSTEMS  OF  NATURE  AND  OF  PERSONALITY. 

I  82.    A  Person's  Knowledge  of  other  Personal  Beings. 

I. .  WHAT  a  person  or  spirit  is,  man  finds  in  his  knowledge  of  him- 
self and  in  this  only.  Man  finds  the  entire  contents  of  the  idea  of 
personality  in  his  consciousness  of  himself  in  his  own  mental  operations. 

It  is  a  principle  already  established  that  in  the  entire  contents  of 
human  knowledge  there  is  no  element  which  has  not  been  first  given 
in  intuition,  perceptive  or  rational.  Every  element  of  the  idea  of 
person  or  spirit  is  given  in  man's  consciousness  of  himself  as  an  indi- 
vidual persisting  in  identity  and  endowed  with  reason,  free-will  and 
rational  sensibility.  No  other  element  can  enter  into  his  conception  of 
a  person  or  spirit,  any  more  than  a  blind  man  can  have  a  conception  of 
color.  This  is  all  the  truth  there  is  in  the  common  assertion  that  all 
that  man  knows  is  derived  from  experience.  The  elements  of  all 
objects  of  thought  must  have  been  known  through  preservative  or 
rational  intuition  before  they  became  objects  of  thought.  And  every 
essential  element  in  my  idea  of  a  person  or  spirit  I  must  first  have 
found  in  my  consciousness  of  myself  in  my  own  mental  operations. 

This  sets  aside  much  empty  speculation  as  to  the  origin  of  the  idea 
of  the  spirit  in  primeval  man.  Such,  for  example,  are  the  fancies 
that  man  obtained  his  idea  of  spirit  from  seeing  his  own  shadow,  or 
from  his  own  dreams,  or  from  the  wind  which  cannot  be  seen,  or  the 
stars  which  cannot  be  touched,  or  the  sky  which  cannot  be  measured, 
or  from  the  "  great  silence "  of  the  forest.  This  kind  of  speculation 
has  no  support  from  observed  facts.  And  why  should  we  look  so  far 
for  what  is  always  obvious  within  ?  For  in  fact  man  has  the  spiritual 
always  before  him  in  his  own  consciousness  of  rational  thought  and 
sensibility  and  free  determination.  What,  he  asks,  is  swifter  than 
thought  ?  Every  hour  he  is  conscious  of  exercising  energies  which  are 
invisible  and  of  receiving  pain  and  pleasure  from  invisible  sources. 
And  no  outward  thing  could  suggest  the  idea  of  spirit  unless  it  had 
first  arisen  in  the  man's  own  conscious  thinking,  feeling  and  willing. 
It  is  often  assumed  that  the  idea  of  spirit  is  attained  with  difficulty  and 
is  late  in  making  its  appearance.  It  is  not  so.  The  idea  appears  in 

555 


556  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

the  most  savage  tribes;  it  exists  spontaneously  without  conscious 
reasoning.  When  it  is  once  originated  in  man's  self-consciousness  he 
carries  it  beyond  himself;  he  believes  in  invisible  spirits  superior  to 
himself  and  attributes  a  soul  or  spirit  even  to  inanimate  things.  Thus 
a  savage  thinks  that  a  watch  is  alive,  or  that  a  letter  which  he  is  carry- 
ino-  knows  what  he  does  and  tells  of  it.  And  when  one  dies  the  sur- 

£5 

vivors  supply  him  with  food  and  weapons,  believing  that  phantom  food 
and  weapons  will  follow  the  soul  of  the  dead  into  the  land  of  spirits. 
Tylor  says :  "  When  Democritus  propounded  the  great  problem  of 
metaphysics,  '  How  do  we  perceive  external  things  ? '  .  .  .  he  ex- 
plained the  fact  of  perception  by  declaring  that  things  are  always 
throwing  oif  images  £etda>Aa)  of  themselves,  which  images,  assimilating 
to  themselves  the  surrounding  air,  enter  a  recipient  soul  and  are  thus 
perceived."  .  .  .  This  is  "  really  the  savage  doctrine  of  object-souls, 
turned  to  a  new  purpose  as  a  method  of  explaining  the  phenomena  of 
thought."*  Man's  idea  of  spirit  arises  spontaneously  in  his  own  con- 
scious mentality.  What  he  slowly  learns  is  that  the  things  active 
around  him  do  not  always  contain  a  conscious  agent  invisible  like  his 
own  thoughts. 

Fetichism  exemplifies  the  same  fact ;  for  the  fetichist  believes  that 
any  material  object  may  be  a  shrine  for  the  divinity.  And  this  is  in 
fact  a  spontaneous  and  unconsciously  intuitive  turning  of  the  mind  in 
the  direction  of  a  fundamental  reality;  for  fetichism  is  a  blind 
animism,  recognizing  in  nature  a  spiritual  and  invisible  power.  Berke- 
ley cites  Toricelli  as  likening  matter  to  an '  enchanted  vase  of  Circe 
serving  as  a  receptacle  of  force,  and  declaring  that  power  and  impulse 
are  such  subtle  abstracts  and  refined  quintessences  that  they  cannot 
be  enclosed  in  any  other  vessels  but  the  inmost  materiality  of  natural 
solids ;  he  also  cites  Leibnitz  as  comparing  active  primitive  power  to 
souls  or  substantial  form.f  To  this  day  physical  science  does  not 
profess  to  remove  the  mystery ;  it  does  not  say  what  force  is  nor  how  it 
is  related  to  matter ;  it  only  recognizes  their  observed  concomitance. 
The  most  profound  and  satisfactory  view  is  that  which  recognizes  the 
absolute  being  as  individuating  its  power  in  it,  and  in  and  through  it 
progressively  revealing  itself  in  higher  and  higher  forms. 

Belief  in  spirit  arises  from  man's  knowledge  of  his  own  invisible 
energies,  and  is  not  of  difficult  attainment  and  late  development;  it 
appears  to  be  spontaneous,  constitutional,  universal,  and  so  tenacious  as 
to  be  scarcely  ever  eradicated.  It  is  worthy  of  note  that  when  from 
any  cause  religious  unbelief  prevails  among  the  learned,  the  belief  in 


*  Tylor:   Primitive  Culture.    Vol.  I.,  p.  449. 

f  Berkeley:    Concerning  Motion ;   Works.  Vol.  II.,  p.  86. 


THE  TWO  SYSTEMS  OF  NATURE  AND  OF  PERSONALITY.      557 

spirits  often  breaks  out  in  gross  superstition  and  strange  fanaticism 
among  the  people;  as  witness  now  the  pilgrimages  to  Lourdes  and 
elsewhere  in  France,  and  the  belief  in  spirit-rappings. 

II.    A  man  has  knowledge  of  personal  beings  other  than  himself. 

1.  The    objection    that    man    in    his    self-consciousness    is  shut   up 
within    his    own    subjectivity   and    unable   to    know  other  beings   as 
personal,  involves  agnosticism.     It  is,  however,  a  common  objection, 
urged  by  persons  who  are  not  agnostics.     For  example,  Prof.  Xewcomb 
says :  "  Should  we  see  in  visible  masses  of  matter  the  same  kind  of 
motion  which  we  know  must  take  place  among  the  molecules  of  matter 
as  they  arrange    themselves  into  the  complex    attitudes  necessary  to 
form  the  leaf  of  a  plant,  we  should  at  once  conclude  that  they  were 
under  the  direction  of  a   living  being   who   was  superintending   the 
execution  of  these  arrangements.     But   our   knowledge  of  will  as   an 
agent  is  so  absolutely  limited  to  the  study  of  our  own  wills  that  we  cannot 
pronounce  any  generalization  respecting  it."      If  a  man  has  knowledge 
of  personality  in  himself,  he  of  course  can  recognize  the  characteristics 
of  personality  when  they  appear  in  another.     The  objection,  therefore, 
must  assume  that  man  has  no  knowledge  of  himself  as  a  person.     It 
necessarily  issues  in  the  universal  skepticism  of  Hume. 

2.  The  philosophy  of  Kant  gives  a  basis  for  knowledge  of  personal 
Ix-mirs  so  far  as  it  allows  knowledge  of  anything.     Kant's  intuition  of 
sense  is  not  intuition  in  its  proper  significance.     Like  Hume's,  it  is  a 
mere  receptivity  of  impressions.     But  he  insists  that  the  mind  is  also 
something  more  than  that,  and  is  so  constituted  as  to  give  further 
knowledge.     The  impressions  of  sense  cannot  be  grasped  in  the  unity 
of  intuition  except  as  the  mind   gives  the  forms  of  time  and  space, 
and  thus  makes  it  possible  to  unite  them.     The    mind  also  proceeds 
from    individuals    to    generals.     Knowledge   is   expressed   in   general 
propositions ;  and  the  mere  reception  of  impressions  cannot  give  such 
knowledge.     Therefore  again  in  order   to    knowledge,  elements  must 
be  supplied  from  the  mind  itself ;  these  are  the  categories  of  quantity, 
quality,  relation  and   modality.     We  cannot  stop  with  disconnected 
and  unrelated  impressions.      We  do  not  know  merely  disconnected 
impressions,  but   we  know  them  also  as  defined  in  time  and  space, 
and  also  existing  as  substance  and  quality,  cause  and  effect,  in  unity, 
plurality,  totality  and  other  categories.     Knowledge  implies  also  an 
element  of  necessity  or  universality,  as  in  the  axioms  of  mathematics 
and  the  judgments  of  causality  and  identity.    Thus  it  contains  elements 
which  are  not  impressions  of  sense  and  cannot  be  resolved  into  those 
impressions.     And   thus   Hume's    theory  of   knowledge  is  refuted  as 
inadequate.     Consequently  Hume's  inference  that  knowledge  is  limited 
within  the  subjectivity  of  the  subject  of  the  sensations  is  no  more  valid  ; 


558  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

the  objective  validity  of  knowledge  is  demonstrated  in  the  sense  in 
which  Kant  uses  the  phrase,  namely,  the  equal  validity  of  the  facts 
to  all  men  as  well  as  to  myself.  It  follows  that  my  knowledge  of  an 
object  is  not  an  impression  limited  within  my  own  subjectivity,  but  is 
the  knowledge  of  an  object  which  is  equally  real  to  all  men.  But  if 
knowledge  is  thus  common  to  all  men,  then  through  this  community 
of  intelligence  men  are  capable  of  knowing  one  another  as  intelligent 
beings. 

Thus  Kant  demonstrated  that,  even  if  knowledge  begins  in  a  recep- 
tion of  impressions,  it  must  transcend  those  impressions  and  the  sub- 
jectivity which  as  mere  impressions  they  imply ;  that  in  all  knowledge 
are  elements  of  intellect  transcending  sense ;  and  that  men,  transcend- 
ing each  his  own  subjectivity,  come  into  communion  with  one  another 
and  know  one  another  as  rational  beings. 

3.  The  recognition  of  sense  as   perceptfve   intuition   involving  at 
once  the  intuition  of  the  object  perceived  and  of  the  self  perceiving, 
implies  without  further  argument  the  possibility  of  knowing  rational 
beings  other  than  ourselves.     Kant  by  his  false  conception  of  sense  as 
a  mere  receptivity  of  impression  is  obliged,  in  order  to  show  the  ob- 
jective validity  of  knowledge,  to  resort  to  the  roundabout  process 
which  I  have  indicated.     He  refutes  Hume  from  his  own  premises  and 
establishes  the  reality  and  validity  of  the  mind's  own  action  in  all 
knowledge.     But  to  one  who  recognizes  perceptive  and  rational  intui- 
tion, Kant's  roundabout  reasoning  is  unnecessary.     Such  an  one,  in 
accordance  with  our  constant  consciousness,  ascribes  to  intuition  the 
knowledge  which  Kant  laboriously  proves. 

Perceptive  intuition  gives  the  knowledge  of  the  Me,  as  distinguished 
from  the  not-me ;  equally  it  must  give  the  knowledge  of  the  Me  as  dis- 
tinguished from  the  Thou.  Says  Krug :  "  Over  against  the  Me  always 
stands  also  the  thou ;  that  is,  a  not-me,  in  which  the  Me  finds  itself 
again,  or  recognizes  a  being  like  itself."* 

4.  The   acts  of  our  fellow-men   reveal    them   to  us  as  persons   or 
rational  free-agents.     Intercommunication  by  language  and  by  other 
signs,  co-operation  for  common  ends,  reciprocal  confidence,  love,  gov- 
ernment, religious  fellowship,  the  existence  of  society  and  its  institu- 
tions, rest  on  the  facts  that  men  know  one  another  as  rational  beings, 
and  that  the  qualities  of  personality  are  common  to  them  all.     When 
one  knows  in  self-consciousness  what  the  characteristics  of  personality 
are,  he  can  recognize  them  when  manifested  in  another. 

5.  That  man  imagines  that  he  finds  the  characteristics  of  personality 
in  an  impersonal  thing  and  so  mistakes  the  impersonal  for  the  personal, 

*  Article  Ich :  Vol.  II.,  p.  427.    Encyklopadiseh-philosophisches  Lexicon. 


THE  TWO  SYSTEMS  OF  NATURE  AND  OF  PERSONALITY.       559 

is  no  argument  against  the  reality  of  his  knowledge  of  personal  beings; 
for  just  so  scientists  sometimes  mistake  the  action  of  one  natural  object 
for  that  of  another.  The  savage  does  not  mistake  his  fellow-men  for 
brutes  or  stones.  But  on  account  of  his  limited  knowledge  the  horizon 
which  divides  himself  and  his  tribesmen  from  the  supernatural  is  very 
near ;  and  he  thinks  he  sees  the  supernatural  in  what  he  afterwards 
discovers  to  belong  to  nature  only.  The  horizon  widens  and  widens 
till  in  his  higher  development  he  conies  to  know  the  one  Supreme  God. 
But  this  does  not  prove  that  the  spiritual  and  supernatural  are  unreal. 
It  reveals  the  fact  that,  in  every  stage  of  his  development,  man  finds 
the  supernatural  and  spiritual  in  himself,  and  expects  to  find  the  same 
in  other  beings ;  and,  however  high  he  rises  in  development,  he  always 
finds  the  supernatural  and  spiritual,  not  only  with  him  in  his  fellow-men, 
but  beyond  and  above  him  in  a  God. 

0.  It  is  objected  that  man's  conception  of  God  and  of  all  supernatural 
and  spiritual  beings  is  anthropomorphic  and  therefore  false.  This, 
however,  is  only  a  pictorial  way  of  representing  to  the  imagination  the 
objection  already  considered  in  its  abstract  form,  that  all  knowledge  is 
unreal,  because  relative  to  our  faculties ;  or.  knowledge  is  impossible 
because  there  is  a  mind  that  knows.  If  any  being  is  endowed  with 
intelligence  and  rationality,  intelligence  and  rationality  in  every  being 
must  be  essentially  the  same  ;  otherwise  the  so-called  intelligence  in  one, 
being  contradictory  to  the  intelligence  of  another,  would  not  be  real 
knowledge;  and  the  so-called  rationality,  being  contradictory  to  another 
rationality,  would  be  irrational.  If,  then,  man  is  endowed  with  reason, 
all  knowledge  which  is  in  accordance  with  reason  is  in  accordance  with 
the  reason  of  man  ;  and  in  this  sense  all  real  knowledge  must  be  anthro- 
pomorphic, for  if  it  were  not  it  would  be  contrary  to  reason.  There  is 
as  much  anthropomorphism  in  physical  science  as  there  is  hi  theology. 
Prof.  FLske  admits  that  belief  in  spirit  is  scarcely  more  anthropomorphic 
than  belief  in  power.*  The  affirmation  that  the  sun  attracts  the  earth 
is  as  really  anthropomorphic  as  the  affirmation  that  "  nature  abhors  a 
vacuum."  Since  the  principles  and  laws  of  science  discovered  by  the 
human  mind  are  found  to  be  true  of  stars  in  the  remotest  space  within 
the  range  of  the  telescope,  and  in  the  remotest  discoverable  distances  of 
past  time,  and  in  the  utmost  sphere  of  microscopic  vision,  it  is  reason- 
able to  conclude  that  man's  reason  and  intelligence  accord  with  the 
reason  and  intelligence  which  are  universal  and  eternal. 

*  Cosmic  Philosophy.    Vol.  II.,  pp.  449,  450. 


560  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL   BASIS  OF  THEISM. 


\  83.    The  Two  Systems. 

We  have  scientific  knowledge  of  two  grand  systems  in  the  universe, 
the  natural  and  the  rational.  Impersonal  beings  exist  in  the  unity  of 
the  system  of  nature ;  personal  beings  exist  in  the  unity  of  the  system 
of  reason,  free  moral  agency,  and  moral  government. 

Man  has  knowledge  of  himself  as  connected  with  both  of  these  sys- 
tems. In  the  impressions  of  sense,  in  his  locomotion  in  space,  in  the 
weight  of  his  body,  and  in  all  his  action  through  it  on  his  environment 
and  its  action  on  him,  he  knows  his  own  organism  as  a  part  of  the  sys- 
tem of  nature.  He  knows  the  outward  world  as  the  sphere  in  which 
and  on  which  he  acts,  and  as  containing  the  forces  which  he  uses  and 
the  resources  of  which  he  avails  himself  in  accomplishing  his  own  ends. 
In  a  similar  manner  man  in  his  knowledge  of  himself  and  other  men 
as  persons,  knows  himself  existing  with  other  personal  beings  in  the 
unity  of  a  rational  and  moral  system.  He  knows  this  world  of  per- 
sonality also  as  the  sphere  in  which  and  on  which  he  acts  and  as  con- 
taining the  spiritual  agencies  and  influences  by  which  he  accomplishes 
his  ends.  We  believe  in  a  spiritual  world  as  the  sphere  and  environ- 
ment of  our  spiritual  energies  just  as  we  believe  in  the  natural  world  as 
the  sphere  and  environment  of  our  physical  energies. 

Thus  man  knowing  himself  as  nature  and  spirit,  knows  himself  con- 
nected with  both  spheres  and  finds  the  powers  of  both  these  grand 
systems  of  the  universe  meeting  in  and  sweeping  through  his  being. 

\  84.     The  Existence  of  a  Personal  God  a  Necessary 
Datum  of  Scientific  Knowledge. 

The  existence  of  the  personal  God  or  the  Supreme  Reason  energizing 
in  the  universe  is  a  necessary  datum  of  scientific  knowledge.  So  far 
from  its  being  true  that  God  is  contradictory  to  Reason  or  is  Unknow- 
able, his  existence  is  a  necessary  presupposition  in  all  knowledge  which 
has  scientific  accuracy  and  comprehensiveness  ;  that  is,  in  all  accurate 
and  ascertained  knowledge  of  the  particular  realities  of  the  universe 
and  their  comprehensive  unity  and  harmony  in  a  system  of  things. 
The  existence  of  God  is  the  keystone  of  the  arch  of  human  knowledge, 
without  which  the  whole  fabric  breaks  down  and  crumbles  to  pieces. 

I.  The  existence  of  God  is  necessary  to  the  trustworthiness  of  the 
human  reason  as  an  organ  of  necessary  and  universal  principles.  If 
man  has  self-evident  knowledge  of  any  principle  which  is  a  universal 
law  of  thought ;  in  other  words,  if  he  has  knowledge  of  any  principle 
the  contradictory  of  which  is  absurd,  then  Reason  is  supreme  and 
absolute  in  the  universe,  and  the  principles  and  laws  which  reveal 


THE  TWO  SYSTEMS  OF  NATURE  AND  OF  PERSONALITY.      561 

themselves  in  human  reason  as  regulative  of  all  thought  and  energy, 
exist  eternal  in  that  supreme  and  absolute  Reason.  Then  the  universe 
is  grounded  in  Reason,  and  Reason  is  everywhere  and  always  the  same ; 
Reason  in  God  is  the  same  in  kind  with  Reason  in  man,  who  is  in  the 
image  of  God.  This  datum  or  presupposition  is  indispensable  to  the 
trustworthiness  of  human  Reason. 

Hence  the  demand  that  the  trustworthiness  of  Reason  be  established 
by  proof  or  argument  is  inadmissible.  Reason  can  demonstrate  itself 
only  by  its  own  rationality  as  the  sun  can  reveal  itself  only  by  shining. 
Some  writers  say  that  the  trustworthiness  of  Reason  can  be  sustained 
only  by  an  appeal  to  morals.  God,  it  is  said,  could  not  do  so  wrong  an 
act  -as  to  give  man  a  constitution  which  would  always  deceive  him.  As 
Mr.  Chubb  put  it,  "  God  would  not  be  so  mean  as  to  do  it."  But  this 
appeal  to  the  moral  implies  the  presupposition  of  a  righteous  God.  It 
is  an  appeal  to  the  practical  reason  for  verification  of  the  speculative 
reason.  The  only  solid  basis  of  scientific  knowledge  is  the  recognition 
of  Reason  as  absolute  and  supreme,  and  of  the  human  mind  as  Reason^ 
and  therefore  so  constituted  that  its  knowledge  is  illumined  and  its 
thought  regulated  by  principles  that  are  eternal  and  regulative  in  the 
Absolute  Reason.  The  existence  of  God  the  Absolute  Reason,  is  a 
necessary  prerequisite  to  the  possibility  of  scientific  human  knowledge. 

II.  The  existence  of  God  is  necessarily  prerequisite  to  the  community 
of  human  knowledge.     Community  of  knowledge  implies  the  participa- 
tion of  men  in  a  common  knowledge  of  facts  and  truths,  a  common 
recognition  of  the  same  laws  of  thought,  the  same  moral  ideas  and  law, 
the  same  standard  of  perfection  and  of  good.     Necessary  to  this  is  the 
supremacy  over  all  men  of  one  and  the  same  absolute  and  unchanging 
Reason.     And  this  Reason  energizing  is  the  personal  God. 

III.  The  existence  of  God  is  necessarily  prerequisite  to  the  complete- 
ness of  human  thought  in  the  knowledge  of  all  particulars  in  the  unity 
of  an  all-comprehending  system.     Human  thought  consists  in  appre- 
hending and  distinguishing  particulars,  and  in  finding  their  relations  in 
the  unity  of  a  whole.     The  ultimate  and  necessary  problem  of  the  Rea- 
son is  to  find  the  unity  of  the  All,  or  to  know  the  All  in  One.     The 
existence  of  God  is  a  presupposition  necessary  to  the  solving  of  this 
ultimate  problem ;  and  this  presupposition  is  either  explicit  or  implicit 
in  all  scientific  knowledge  of  the  many  in  one. 

It  is  only  as  we  recognize  God  that  we  can  know  natural  things  in 
the  unity  of  a  system  of  nature.  We  have  seen  that  the  archetypal 
thought  or  plan  of  the  universe  is  eternal  in  the  absolute  Reason.  This 
excludes  caprice,  chance,  fate,  and  all  disorder.  God's  almightiness  is 
controlled  by  Reason ;  it  cannot  give  reality  to  what  Reason  knows  to 
be  absurd,  and  it  acts  only  in  accordance  with  perfect  wisdom  and  love 
36 


562  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

which  regulate  all  God's  action.  But  since  it  is  an  eternal  truth  of 
Keason  that  the  infinite  can  never  be  completely  expressed  in  the  finite, 
the  realization  of  the  archetypal  thought  must  be  under  limits  of  space, 
time,  and  quantity,  and  therefore  must  be  always  progressive,  and  at 
every  point  of  time  and  boundary  of  space  and  limit  of  quantity  must 
be  incomplete,  awaiting  further  development.  But  since  nature  as  it 
exists  at  any  point  of  time  is  so  far  a  realization  of  the  thought  of  God, 
the  divine  Reason  energizing  on  and  through  it  produces  results  com- 
mensurate with  its  existing  limitations ;  yet  as  continuing  the  realization 
of  the  same  plan  of  perfect  reason,  all  further  evolution  must  be  in 
harmony  with  the  preceding,  to  whatever  extent  it  may  transcend  it. 
Thus  we  have  all  natural  things  and  forces  through  all  time  and  space 
in  the  unity  of  a  rational  system.  But  without  a  God  nature  expresses 
no  rational  thought,  conforms  to  no  rational  law,  realizes  no  rational 
end  and  has  not  the  unity  and  harmony  of  a  system. 

When  rational  beings  appear,  they  also  exist  in  the  unity  of  a  rational 
system  in  their  common  relations  to  God  and  under  the  same  universal 
law  of  love.  They  are  in  unity,  not  by  a  physical  force  like  attrac- 
tion, but  by  common  truth,  law  and  ends  influencing  them  as  rational 
free  agents  under  God,  the  Father  of  spirits.  Without  God  there  could 
be  no  system  of  rational  free  agents  under  the  universal  law  of  love  ; 
and  in  fact  rational  free  agents  could  not  be  conceived  as  existing. 

And  the  two  systems  are  in  the  unity  of  a  universe  through  their 
common  relations  to  God.  But  there  is  no  antagonism  between  nature 
and  spirit,  between  the  natural  and  the  moral  systems,  for  both  are  in 
unison  as  realizing  the  archetypal  thought  of  absolute  reason.  The 
finite  spirit  itself  is  evolved  only  when  nature  is  prepared  for  its  presence 
and  action.  A  finite  spirit  is  a  person  considered  abstractly  from  matter 
and  physical  nature,  and  may  conceivably  exist  separate  from  any  ma- 
terial organism.  But  since  personality  makes  its  appearance  in  the 
evolution  of  nature  and  is  known  to  us  in  a  human  body,  there  is  no 
antagonism  between  the  two,  and  finite  spirits  may  always  exist  and  act 
in  some  organic  medium,  though  we  know  not  what  ethereal  refinement 
the  future  body  may  attain.  The  antagonism  of  nature  and  spirit  is 
abnormal  and  arises  from  sin  by  which  the  spirit  has  perverted  itself  in 
the  wrong  action  of  free-will. 

And  nature  is  in  harmony  with  spirit  as  the  sphere  in  which  spiritual 
creatures  live  and  act  under  the  limits  of  time  and  space,  and  as  subor- 
dinate to  all  the  ends  of  the  spiritual  system.  Thus  the  two  systems 
become  one  as  realizing  the  archetypal  thought  of  God. 

In  this  system  sin  is  the  only  essential  evil.  All  other  privation  or 
suffering  is  incidental  to  the  limitations  inseparable  from  the  finite. 
Borne  in  fortitude  or  removed  by  energy,  and  in  either  case  triumphed 


THE  TWO  SYSTEMS  OF  NATURE  AND  OF  PERSONALITY.      563 

over  by  faith  and  love,  they  become  occasions  of  discipline  and  de- 
velopment, and  of  spiritual  enrichment  in  the  true  good.  Sin  is  possible 
to  finite  free  agents  through  the  individuation  inseparable  from  finite- 
ness.  The  law  of  love,  grounded  in  the  constitution  of  the  universe, 
calls  men  beyond  their  individuation  to  recognize  their  unity  in  their 
common  relation  to  God  and  their  unity  one  with  another  in  the  rational 
system,  in  which  they  are  to  be  workers  together  with  God  in  the  pro- 
gressive realization  of  His  perfect  wisdom  and  love.  Every  thing  and 
every  person  in  the  universe  is  included  in  this  all-embracing  dual  sys- 
tem of  nature  and  spirit.  Nothing  exists  in  isolation  ;  nothing  exists 
for  itself;  "  no  man  liveth  for  himself."  Blessedness  is  possible  to  man 
only  as  he  lives  for  others  as  well  as  for  himself  in  obedience  to  the  law 
of  universal  love,  and  thus  in  harmony  with  the  supreme  and  absolute 
Reason. 

In  this  system  the  conflict  is  hot  between  spirit  and  matter ;  matter 
is  the  instrument  of  spirit.  The  conflict  is  between  God  and  all  wise 
and  righteous  beings  against  the  unreasonable  and  sinful.  It  is  the 
conflict  of  love  against  selfishness,  of  the  spiritual  against  the  earthly 
and  the  sensual.  In  this  conflict  the  good  must  progressively  prevail 
over  the  evil.  In  expectation  of  that  triumph  in  the  redemption  of  the 
human  race,  "  according  to  His  promise,  we  look  for  new  heavens  and 
a  new  earth  wherein  dwelleth  righteousness."  As  man  unites  in  himself 
both  nature  and  spirit,  and  the  powers  of  both  the  natural  and  the 
rational  system  meet  in  him,  Jesus  the  Christ,  "  the  word  made  flesh," 
unites  in  Himself  both  the  human  and  the  divine ;  He  is  the  ideal  of 
man  receiving  the  assaults  of  evil  and  standing  against  them  in  love, 
overcoming  evil  with  good,  and  by  humiliation  and  suffering,  the  cross 
and  the  grave  exalted  to  the  heavenly  glory ;  and  at  the  same  time 
in  him  God  is  most  completely  revealed  as  the  God  of  love,  the  Most 
High  coming  down  to  the  lowly  to  lift  it  up.  And  as  through  ages 
upon  ages  God  continues  in  the  universe  action  of  which  this  is  the 
type,  he  will  not  only  offer  himself  as  the  redeemer  of  rational  beings 
from  their  lowliness  and  sin,  but  will  redeem  nature  itself  more  and 
more  from  its  restrictions,  imperfections  and  pains.  "  The  creation 
itself  also  shall  be  delivered  from  the  bondage  of  corruption  into  the 
liberty  of  the  glory  of  the  children  of  God."  No  imagination  can  con- 
ceive what  the  world-births  are  to  be  with  which  already,  as  Paul  says, 
"  the  whole  creation  groaneth  and  travaileth  in  pain  together ; "  nor 
what  the  heavenly  cities,  the  fields  of  light,  the  paradises  of  God  may 
be  which  may  take  the  place  of  these  worlds  of  gross  matter ;  nor  what 
the  purer  light  may  be  in  that  abode  where  there  is  no  more  need  of 
the  sun,  "  for  the  glory  of  God  lightens  it  and  the  Lamb  is  the  light 
thereof."  And  as  to  the  saints  of  God  peopling  these  heavenly  abodes 


564  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  BASIS  OF  THEISM. 

no  imagination  can  conceive  what  may  be  their  transcendent  beatfty, 
swiftness  and  power,  the  vast  range  and  keen  penetration  of  their  intui- 
tion like  a  keen,  far-reaching  eye-sight,  the  immensity  of  their  know- 
ledge, the  majesty,  grace,  and  energy  of  their  love,  and  the  immediacy 
and  fullness  of  the  vision  of  God,  of  which  in  their  progress  they  may 
have  become  susceptible. 

To  the  Christian  theist  these  scriptural  anticipations,  reasonable  in 
themselves,  are  made  more  conceivable  by  the  scientific  theory  of  evolu- 
tion. Any  theory  of  evolution  excluding  the  presupposition,  explicit  or 
implicit,  of  Absolute  Reason  as  the  ultimate  ground  of  the  universe 
and  energizing  in  its  evolution,  must  be  inconsistent  with  itself,  incom- 
patible with  the  necessary  laws  of  thought,  and  contradictory  to  human 
reason. 


' 


Books  not  return6     °nthird  day  °™rdUB00ks  noTin 

SiS^S.  *-^5ir!i^ 


NOV 
APR  26  1918 


DEC     8 


1  2  2003 


APR    4  1965 


YC  30491 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


